Ride of his life

Cabbie Maurice Bloom had just picked up his first passenger of the evening. After about five minutes of driving, the passenger suddenly tapped Maurice on his shoulder to ask him a question.

Maurice screamed, lost control of his taxi, nearly hit a bus, went up onto the pavement and stopped only inches from a shop window.

For a second, everything went very quiet in the taxi, then Maurice said, “Look, don’t ever do that again. You scared the living daylights out of me.”

His passenger apologized and said, “I didn’t realize that a little tap could scare you so much.”

Maurice replied, “Sorry, it’s not really your fault. Today is only my second day as a cab driver — I’ve been driving hearses for the past 25 years.”

© david minkoff

Fractions

Just before the class took its advanced placement math exams, the teacher asked the following problem to test how well the students would do in the real exam:

“A rich man dies and leaves $240 million in his will. One-third is to go to his wife; one-fifth is to go to his son; one-sixth to his chauffeur; one-eighth to his secretary; and the rest to charity. Now, what does each get?”

After a long silence in the classroom, Saul raised his hand.

“Yes, Saul,” said the teacher.

“A good lawyer!” he replied.

© david minkoff

A quickie

Q: What’s a genius?

A: An average student with a Jewish mother.

© david minkoff