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A bill collector knocked on the door of a country debtor.

"Is Fred home?", he asked the woman who answered the door.

"Sorry," the woman replied. "Fred's gone for cotton."

The next day, the collector tried again "Is Fred here today?" "No, sir", she said, "I'm afraid Fred has gone for cotton."

When he returned the third day he humphed, "I suppose Fred is gone for cotton again?"

"No," the woman answered solemnly, "Fred died yesterday."

Suspicious that he was being avoided, the collector decided to wait a week and investigate the cemetery himself. But sure enough, there was poor Fred's tombstone, with this inscription:

"Gone, But Not for Cotton."

Then there is researcher Peter Fong, who has given new meaning to the expression "happy as a clam." The Gettysburg College biologist stumbled onto the fact that molluscs reproduce at 10 times their normal rate if Prozac is dumped in the water.

Fong was pursuing research on the basic nervous system of fingernail clams when he discovered that if he dumped the antidepressant into the water, the clams would start reproducing madly.

"It's a piece of wonderful science and it sounds utterly ridiculous at the same time," Abrahams said.

Traffic was backed up almost to a standstill this morning as I drove to work. I turned on the radio to listen to my favourite rock station but they were playing Rockabilly which I absolutely detest.

So I decided to ram the dial for something better and happened to tune in a local talk show host who was ranting about government waste of funds on useless research projects.

He was objecting to congress funding a project to a team in Gettysburg, PA , that was feeding clams and other molluscs large doses of Prozac to determine its effect on these sea dwellers. He cited this as an example of government waste.

I immediately phoned him on my cellular phone and found myself on the air.

The host was very unhappy when I told him that this research was very important as it was essential to determine if Prozac was effective as a mussel relaxant.

If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle:

Take two and keep away from children.

Most people don't know that back in 1912, Hellmann's mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery on May 5th in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko De Mayo.