... found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape.

Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.

Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.

Someone in MI-5 (similar to America 's OSS ) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.

At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.

Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were regional system).. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add: 1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass 2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together 3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!

British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.

Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war. The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honored in a public ceremony.

It's always nice when you can play that "Get Out of Jail Free" card!

• The snow truck runs the snow to the end of the cul de sac and piles it there, so at the end of the winter there is a twenty-foot wall that doesn’t melt fully until July.
• The snow truck decides to put all of the snow piles in the mall lot in the handicapped spaces.
• The truck runs out of ice melter about ten feet before and into the large four-lane intersection. Drivers, you are on your own here.
• You are driving fifty-five on a state highway in the dark about a day after it was plowed. Suddenly you realize that the truck turned off about one mile before the road ended and suddenly your side is part of a giant drift.
• The road has been under construction with barricades all summer. Now it is winter. Do you think that they will remove the barricades for safety for the winter months? Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy?
• Of course they will plow shut the end of your driveway right when you finish hand digging it out. But do they have to do that with the summer asphalt patch, too?
• Of course, your snow blower fails to start when you have the big storm. That never will happen with the well equipped and tax supported snow fleet of your local village. Do you believe in Santa Claus?
• That neighbor who works for the city gets to push his snow mass out into the street every time without incident. Let’s see what happens when you make a mistake with your blower and send a small trickle of snow out into the parkway. Should I say a small, medium or large fine?
• Sorry, Harry, the best snow plow driver in town just retired. Now his teenaged son, Junior is behind the wheel. His specialty is to speed up and throw the salt all over your prized and expensive foliage in the middle of your property, so that it will assume a dead and brown color next spring.
• It’s garbage day, and you have to put your cans out for the trash collectors. Then it snows and here comes the snow trucks. They love wiping out garbage cans with piles of snow, and they get bonus points if they smash up your mailbox, too.

Poor old Luke is having a nightmare, using his chopsticks in both hands, dropping his food all over the table and eventually himself.

Obi-Wan looks at Luke disapprovingly and says, "Use the FORKS, Luke."

• St. John, the Blacksmith, dumped water on his head.
• Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do one to others before they do one to you. He also explained, "Man doth not live by sweat alone."
• It was a miracle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.
• The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 decibels.
• A Christian should have only one wife. This is called monotony.
• The epistles were the wives of the apostles.
• One of the opossums was St. Matthew, who was by profession a taximan.
• When Mary heard that she was the Mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.
• St. Paul cavorted to Christianity. He preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marriage.