Whatever jokes

A good start.

Welcome to Iraq! It is so good of you and your Weapons Inspectors to visit my humble nation once again. My people are overjoyed to assist the totally neutral and gloriously impotent UN in serving their American Masters. I realize that many of you would much rather be touring the Third World for some magnificently ineffective do-nothing NGO, but alas you are here compromising your values on behalf of Western oil companies.

Before you wipe the blood from your hands and get down to the business of concocting reasons for the US to bomb us back to the stone ages of 1991, I thought I'd help reorient you to the ways of magical Baghdad with a few "Dos" and "Don'ts".

DO:
Slavishly patronize Baghdad locals with chocolate bars and worthless Western baubles. Nothing ingratiates us more to intrusive throngs of chubby, sweaty, lobster-red warmongers then when they pass out meaningless tchotkes to us Third World "savages". We will remember these tokens as we dance on your bleached bones. I joke!

DO:
Ignore my playful peoples penchant for recreational HAZMAT suit use. Moreover, ignore the glowing, three-tailed rats that are indigenous to Baghdad. While you're at it, ignore the totally desolate warehouse full of rotting canisters at the corner of Saddam Is Great Avenue and Drown In Blood Yankee Dogs Boulevard.

DO:
Feel free to enter any building, factory, or hospital you desire. And while you're busy violating my paranoid and fragile egos sovereignty, feel free to double-check the bedpans of the dying, gut the teddy bears of orphans, and pour into the dirt any and all bottles of weapons grade baby formula you might uncover.

DON'T:
Forget your high-tech Weapons of Mass Destruction Poking Sticks or Nintendo Gameboys at the hotel. We know that without these useless, aesthetic "tools" you cannot unearth the make-believe stores of plutonium I don't have hidden underneath my opulent Presidential Palaces that my people willed me to build for my own noble pleasures.

DON'T:
Ignore the cultural relativism we know you studied in your Liberal Arts Colleges. We humble Iraqis have a far different culture than the advanced West. Whereas you respect the differences between languages, cultures and value systems, I want to kill. Kill you, your family, friends, grammar school teachers, the Israelis, whole bunches of Saudis and just for good measure, my new yet treacherous-looking barber Adnan.

DON'T:
Mock our cherished Iraqi way of life. While you might think it barbaric and backward, our seemingly brutal governmental system is based on sound fascistic principles that have helped keep the majority of Arabs in splendid desolate squalor for decades.

I truly hope your stay here is a positive experience. I pray that those of you I do not like do not accidentally get caught in the crossfire of the invasion you are busy inventing!

In Me I Trust,
Saddam

What makes these questions so difficult is that every one is guaranteed to explode into a major argument if the man answers incorrectly (i.e., tells the truth). Therefore, as a public service, each question is analyzed below, along with possible responses.

Question # 1: What are you thinking about? The proper answer to this, of course, is: " I'm sorry if I've been pensive, dear. I was just reflecting on what a warm, wonderful, thoughtful, caring, intelligent woman you are, and how lucky I am to have met you." This response obviously bears no resemblance to the true answer, which most likely is one of the following: a. Football. b. Golf. c. How fat you are. d. How much prettier she is than you e. How I would spend the insurance money if you died.
Perhaps the best response to this question was offered by Al Bundy, who once told Peg, "If I wanted you to know what I was thinking, I would be talking to you!"

Question # 2: Do you love me? The proper response is: "YES!" or, if you feel a more detailed answer is in order, "Yes, dear."
Inappropriate responses include: a. Oh Yeah, sh@*-loads. b. Would it make you feel better if I said yes? c. That depends on what you mean by love. d. Does it matter? e. Who, me?

Question # 3: Do I look fat? The correct answer is an emphatic: "Of course not!"
Incorrect answers are: a. Compared to what? b. I wouldn't call you fat, but you're not exactly thin. c. A little extra weight looks good on you. d. I've seen fatter. e. Sorry what did you say? I was just thinking about how I would spend the insurance money if you died.

Question # 4: Do you think she's prettier than me? Once again, the proper response is an emphatic: "Of course not!"
Incorrect responses include: a. Yes, but you have a better personality b. Not prettier, but definitely thinner c. Not as pretty as you when you were her age d. Define pretty e. Sorry what did you say ? I was just thinking about how I would spend the insurance money if you died.

Question # 5: What would you do if I died? A definite no-win question.(The real answer, of course, is "Buy a Lotus and a Boat").
No matter how you answer this, be prepared for at least an hour of follow-up questions, usually along the these lines:
WOMAN: Would you get married again? MAN: Definitely not! WOMAN: Why not - don't you like being married? MAN: Of course I do. WOMAN: Then why wouldn't you remarry? MAN: Okay, I'd get married again. WOMAN: You would? (with a hurtful look on her face) MAN: (makes audible groan) WOMAN: Would you sleep with her in our bed? MAN: Where else would we sleep? WOMAN: Would you put away my pictures, and replace them with pictures of her? MAN: That would seem like the proper thing to do. WOMAN: And would you let her use my golf clubs? MAN: She can't use them; she's left-handed. WOMAN: - - - silence - - - MAN: Sh&%.

So that brunettes can remember them.