FileTitle: Joke136.html
Category: Humor
Type: Joke
Description: Shaggy Dog
                         SLICED BREAD

Native speakers of American English have all heard the expression that
"such-and-such is the best thing since sliced bread," but not many are
familiar with the beginnings of sliced bread.  Bread was first sliced
and sold that way in Chicago.  There, shortly after the turn of the
century, a young man inherited a small, corner bakery from his parents
and began to operate it.  One day a customer told him that she had cut
her hand while slicing bread she bought at the bakery.  Upon hearing
this, the young man sliced a loaf for her.  She came in the next day
with her neighbor; they both wanted their bread sliced.  Soon, the man
had such a demand for sliced bread that he began to use a longer knife
so that he could slice two loaves at once.  The demand grew and he was
soon slicing three loaves simultaneously.  He searched in vain for a
knife long enough to slice four loaves at once.  After weeks of
searching, he still could not find a knife long enough to slice four
loaves.  One night, as he and his wife were out for an evening stroll
in the neighborhood, something in a store window caught his eye.  He
hurried over to the window and stood there staring.  His wife walked
up beside him and asked what had so captured his attention.  In an
excited voice he sang out, "I'm looking over a four loaf cleaver, that
I overlooked before!"