Joe's Fair Plumbing Act

OK - someone shared this with me and she was not sure of it's original origin - so I am unable to give credit where credit is due -but I found it very entertaining...

Enjoy.......

Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the Plumber to come and fix it.

Joe drives to Obama's house, which is located in a very nice neighborhood and where it's clear that all the residents make more than $250,000 per year.

Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room that contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem and tells Obama, who is standing near the door, that it's an easy repair that will take less than 10 minutes.
Obama asks Joe how much it will cost. Joe immediately says, "$9,500."

"$9,500?" Obama asks, stunned. "But you said it's an easy repair!"

"Yes, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more than $250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less than that for free," explains Joe. "It's always been my philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied government to pass this philosophy as law, and it did pass earlier this year, so now all plumbers have to do business this way. It's known as 'Joe's Fair Plumbing Act of 2008.' Surprised you haven't heard of it."

In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there's no way he's paying that much for a small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves.

Obama spends the next hour flipping through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he finds that all other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of business. Not wanting to pay Joe's price, Obama does nothing. The leak under Obama's sink goes unrepaired for the next several days.

A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and there's a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls Joe and pleads with him to return.

Joe goes back to Obama's house, looks at the leaky pipe, and says "Let's see – this will cost you about $21,000."

"A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!" Obama quickly fires back.

Joe explains the reason for the dramatic increase. "Well, because of the 'Joe's Fair Plumbing Act,' a lot of rich people are learning how to fix their own plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free plumbing I'm doing for the people who make less than $250,000. As a result, the rate I have to charge my wealthy paying
customers rises every day.

"Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work from the group of people who get it for free has skyrocketed, and there's a long waiting list of those who need repairs. This has put a lot of my fellow plumbers out of business, and they're not being replaced – nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they won't make any money. I'm hurting now too – all thanks to
greedy rich people like you who won't pay their fair share."

Obama tries to straighten out the plumber: "Of course you're hurting, Joe! Don't you get it? If all the rich people learn how to fix their own plumbing and you refuse to charge the poorer people for your services, you'll be broke, and then what will you do?"

Joe immediately replies, "Run for president, apparently.

It's a ME day...

Yep - I am playing hooky from work today. There were some things I needed to do. Like - relax.... sleep a little late.... clean the pool.....hang out by the pool....spend some time with my furry critters....hang out by the pool.... stamp some cards..... hang out by the pool.... watch some TV..... hang out by the pool....

so yep.... the day is mine to do as I wish..... So I am off.... to relax and of course hang out by the pool :)

Photo Tagged....

Yep, I was tagged for a photo challenge by my fellow splitcoast stamper friend Mynee: click here to see her blog.

Here is how it works:
The rules for this challenge: Go to where you store your photos on your computer. Go to the 7th folder and pick the 7th photo. Post that photo on your blog along with a short story about it. Tag 7 people and leave a comment on their blog or email them letting them know you chose them. Here's my photo:




OK - as far as sharing a short story about it...... well, it pretty much speaks for itself. I think you can figure out we were in Paris and it was obviously a picture of my dear kind husband acting like he always does. Don't you just love goofs? :)

I am going to challenge the following 7 blog owners:

Dana

Amanda

Peg

Jackie

Sharon

Amy

Jackie

Have you seen my kitty?

She is missing :(

Reward offered!

My Girl Cave

I love to scrapbook and rubber stamp - so in our very first house, I used the room over the garage as my scrapbook room. It was great! When we moved to our next house, we had so much square footage that what started out as one room - became virtually the entire floor! I loved that craft space! I had friends that would come over once a week and we would all scrap together. When we bought our current house, I claimed the 20' X 20' bonus room as my space. That worked out for awhile.... at least until we went to Iraq. While we were gone, our house sitters moved our couch in there to make room for their couch. When I got back, I decided I really liked having the couch in there. That was my first mistake...... Soon, Chris had decided that room was the perfect place to put the grandfather clock we got in Italy.... then, he decided he needed a big screen TV..... I was moved to a small corner. I went to Pennsylvania to pick up my car and when I came back, our fish tank was in the corner where I had been moved. I was now moved to a closet! Albeit a HUGE closet - but a closet none the less. In theory, it would have been a great place to work, but I could never get organized in there. So, for the last three weekends, we have been doing a little rearranging in our house and I now have my very own girl cave! It also serves as a guest room, but we hardly ever have guests. We seemed to have a lot more guests when we lived on the beach ;-) Anyway - I am really pleased with the way it turned out. The cats and dog LOVE the room and sometimes hang out in there even when I am not there. Here are some pics of my girl cave....
















The closet is where I store misc. supplies. The white boxes are where I have memos and misc stuff for specific books I am working on. My stamps are stored in there as well.

The book shelf holds the albums I am working on.








I even got a new bedspread for the guest bed. I have to admit that it is a quite comfy place to hang out, even when I am not doing something creative....







The pictures are not hung yet - they are just sitting there.... Chris promised to hang them for me. In the plastic drawers are my scissors, cutting tools, and punches. I have the trays of precut paper for card making, my 12" X 12" paper is stored vertically beside that tray. My 8 1/2" X 11 paper is in the paper sorters. In the drawers and cabinets underneath are my quickuts, sizzix, silhouette, and misc cutting systems. In the two plastic drawers beside that is my scrap paper, envelopes, etc.



I created an "embellishment corner". We bought some curtain rods and hung them on the walls for my ribbons as well as my stickers, die cuts, and misc embellishments. We bought clips to match the rods to hang packages on. This works out great - because I no longer have to go through boxes and boxes just to find that one thing that is perfect for the page I am working on. It works really well to easily see what I have. Actually, it works a little too well, because I discovered that I liked some things so well that I had purchased them more than once! My inks are also stored in this area, as well as my markers & pens. In the cabinets and baskets are embossing powders, glitters, brads, eyelets, water color pencils, chalks, water color crayons, etc.



Another view of my embellishment corner.



The table to the right is my work space. The plastic box in front of the window is for my kitties. I put a blanket on it and redirect them there whenever they try to sit on what I am working on. They love it because they can look out the window. You can actually see Pauper in the bottom right hand corner of this picture. My TV is hanging in the corner - above my work space. I also have a stereo to jam out while my creative juices are flowing.

?I just love my new "girl cave"! Anyone want to come play?