A new chew?
"I was fixing my husband's lunch for work when he asked me to throw in a container of chew," says Becky Mannina of Waterloo, Iowa, whose husband Frank is a UAW Local 838 member. "Well, did he ever have a surprise when he opened that container and found wax worms he uses for ice fishing. A good way to try to get him to quit chewing, don't you think?"

Half a step
Denny Yanke (UAW Local 1714) of Canfield, Ohio, recalls the dark morning he was walking through the long entrance tunnel to work where the footsteps of work shoes echoed "clomp clomp" off the walls.

"I saw someone up ahead of me, but I only heard one clomp," says Yanke. "I saw it was my relief person Al who is color blind. I caught up to him, looked down and said,

'Al, you have on one black work shoe and one brown dress shoe.' He didn't know what to say. At least he had left and right shoes on."

You're not him
Greg Nash (UAW Local 412) of Mt. Morris, Mich., sent this in: The son of a minister asked his father, "When will I be able to drive your car?" The minister answered, "When you cut your long hair." The son replied, "Jesus had long hair." The minister replied, "Yes he did, and he also walked everywhere he went."

Kids do say the darndest things
"My six-year-old nephew was visiting from out of state," recalls Celeste Giba, daughter of Andrew Giba (UAW Local 677) of Allentown, Pa. "My aunt, a senior citizen, came out to greet him. 'Charlie,' she exclaimed, 'you've lost two teeth!' 'Yeah,' he blurted out, 'but you lost more than me!' We still laugh about it."

That explains it
Max Otis Evans (UAW Local 218) of Forth Worth, Texas, recalls the old-timer who told him how he got hired: "One day I was plowing cotton with a jackass just about where we're standing, and a company man came up and told me they were going to build a helicopter plant on this land. He offered me a janitor's job, and I took it. He made the jackass a supervisor."

T-shirts for workplace humor

We're looking for a few good stories to tell every issue. If you've got one, send it along to:

"Workplace Humor"
Solidarity House
8000 E. Jefferson Ave
Detroit, MI 48214.

Or you can fax it to us at 313-331-1520 or e-mail it to uawsolidarity@uaw.net

Include your local number. If we use your story, you'll get a UAW T-shirt.