Welcome to Fruita

Hmmm...

February 2012 — In an effort to increase tourism in their city, a couple in Fruita, Colorado, came up with the idea to make stickers that used the phrase, "Welcome to Fruita" along with its corresponding acronym. The couple had several hundred stickers made. City officials and many residents were not too thrilled about it. Really? Had I been living there, I would have been all for it.

A friend who happened to be passing through the town at the time grabbed a sticker and gave it to me. So in honor of their sticker, I list here some stories that I personally heard or came across that made me chuckle.

• A work colleague told me her boyfriend does not like to go #2 at work. He's worried that if he's sitting there on the toilet, someone will see his shoes under the stall door and know it's him taking a dump.

• When my boss was younger, a friend of his dropped the f-bomb and his friend's dad over heard it. The father did not approve of such language and came up with a solution to teach his son to say "fire truck" in place of f--k. I can see it now. One day he'll be stressed because he's late for an important appointment, and he'll have to pull over and stop for a fire truck responding to an emergency. "Fire trucking fire truck!!"

• An Asian American friend who moved to the US from Vietnam had ordered a pizza by phone from a local pizza joint. When he arrived at the pizza place to pick it up, the cashier had just come back to the counter from the kitchen. Expecting a pickup, the cashier looked at my friend and asked, "Are you José?" My friend wondering, "How in the world can he mix me up with a Latino?" said, "No, I'm hose b."

• The FAA (Federal Aviation Administraton) uses a 3-letter airport code to identify airports across the United States. For example, Los Angeles International Airport is LAX, and the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York is JFK. It's a system that began in the 1960's. And like all airports, the Sioux Gateway Airport, serving Sioux City, Iowa, was assigned its code by the FAA, a code that Sioux City was not too fond of. Why? Because their code is SUX. That's right, SUX. Sioux City petitioned the FAA twice to change the code, but the FAA refused. So instead of fighting it, Sioux City decided to use it to their advantage and make it part of their culture. So if ever you are in Sioux City, Iowa, look for the t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and post cards all bearing in capital letters, SUX.

• Brigham Young University (BYU), located in Provo, Utah, is run by the Mormon Church. The majority of its students are LDS and the Mormon Church teaches its young adults to lead a chaste life and abstain from pre-marital sex. Rumor has it that horny BYU students, trying to satisfy their desires, came up with a workaround to this teaching. They decided that it is not sex if the man inserts his penis into the coed's vagina without engaging in a rhythmic, thrusting motion, and keeps still and doesn't ejaculate. They call the act "floating."

• In July 2013, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport. Amazingly, almost all of the passengers and crew members survived. A few days followng the crash, KTVU-TV of Oakland, California, reported names of the four pilots on the flight, names that were confirmed by an intern at the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board). Turns out, the names were bogus and KTVU didn't realize it until after the news anchor read the names over the air. Like many news agencies, they rushed to be the first to report the news. "But the names were confirmed by the NTSB," you say. Exactly, but even if the President of the United States confirmed the names, anyone with half a brain would have realized it was a joke. What were the names? Here is what KTVU reported:

  - Captain Sum Ting Wong
  - Wi Tu Lo
  - Ho Lee Fuk
  - Bang Ding Ow
  

  Watch the actual broadcast: