I was on a bus in Florida once, near Pensacola. This Northwest boy isn't used to air conditioning, so I was wearing my sweater. I noticed a stray thread coming out of my sleeve and asked my companion, who was sitting in the aisle seat, to pull it. She started pulling but soon had to stand up and walk backwards down the middle of the bus as the thread just kept getting longer. The sweater-string had a curious knot in it about every two feet.

It was apparent this activity was gaining an audience, so I announced, "This is my Don Knotts impression." I was met by a line of expressionless faces, so I attempted to explain. You know the pun is extra extra bad when you have to spell it out. "See, knots in the thread? Don Knotts? Get it?" I sort of laugh weakly, "Heh-heh."

The expressionless starting getting an expression. Silent annoyance.

This is where I should've just left well enough alone. But no. Like an idiot I say, "Hey, if that yarn isn't long enough for you, I'll tell another one."

And the next thing I know I'm being shoved off the bus at a little town called Argyle. The bus driver, with a straight face, sternly told me, "We don't cotton much to that kind of humor around here."

So once again I'm driving in Grays Harbor County, minding my own business like the normal guy I am, when I spot a shop-vac tied down in the back of a pickup. So I say to the Grasshopper, "Look, that shop-vac has been so bad that it has to be tied down. And, you know, when shop-vacs go bad ..."

My voice trailed off, I was distracted by something. And the grasshopper finished my sentence, " ... it really sucks!"

Somewhere a snare drum and cymbals went, "badum-bum-CHING!"

Then, as the Grasshopper noticed I was unable to respond in my accustomed wiseass way, I was attacked as if a shark had sensed blood in the water. "You are hosed, man. You might as well bag it."

And so I did. But I lived to tell the tale.