Fatale Abstraction

At lunch Sunday, Dad told two stories that had me laughing uncontrollably. The first is a joke, and the second is a true story.

A little boy was putting the leash on his dog to take her for a walk, and his mother said "you can't take her for a walk-- she's in heat."
The boy said "what does that mean?"
"Go ask your father" came the tart response.

He found his father in the garage, working on the lawn mower and said "ma said I can't walk the dog because she's in heat. What does that mean?"

The father took a greasy shop rag, poured some gasoline on it and wiped it on the dog's rear-end and said "she'll be okay, now. You can walk her."

A little while later, the boy came back to the house with just the leash, and the father said "what happened? Where's the dog?"

The little boy responded "She ran out of gas. Last I saw her, there was a big dog giving her a push up the street."
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Dad was working at a car repair place in Memphis in the 70s. There was a mechanic named Andy who was working on the air conditioning system of an enormous woman's car, and she was there in the service bay, hovering as Andy worked, flapping her gums and basically being a nuisance, micromanaging him.

He was about finished with the job, and she asked him "How many BTUs does this thing have?"

Andy shot back "Well, lady, I don't know how many BTUs it has, but it's got enough BTUs to cool a B-U-T as big as a T-U-B."