LAUGH LINES

Jay Leno, correcting a previous story that said men burn 250 calories while making love:

“The man actually uses only 10 calories during sex. He uses the other 240 calories bragging about it to all of his friends.�

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This must be a popular joke. Several readers have sent in a variation of it:

A novice parachutist jumps from the plane and pulls the release cord. When nothing happens, he pulls it again. Dropping rapidly toward the ground, he looks down and sees a man from the ground hurtling toward him.

“My savior,� the parachutist yells. “Do you know anything about parachutes.�

“No,� comes the reply. “Do you know anything about gas stoves?� *

Short takes: Comic Gay Goodenough wonders: “Why are there so many women with fake fingernails, fake eyelashes and fake boobs complaining that there are no real men?�

Argus Hamilton on Clinton’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Stephen G. Breyer: “He’s called an absolute ‘centrist’ on the bench. That means in Roe vs. Wade, he’d vote for versus .�

Reader Bob DeVinney of Pomona claims that when his nephew applied for a job, the prospective employers asked if he could be bonded: “OK,� replied the young man, “but no whips.�

Comedian Craig Shoemaker recalls the follies of most everyone’s collective youth: “Mom always said, ‘Wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident.’ How good is that advice? If I see a car bearing down on me, how clean is my underwear gonna be?�

Comic Sib Ventress finds incredible the news that Frank Sinatra is using a TelePrompTer in concert because he has trouble remembering lyrics: “That means people are now spending a couple hundred bucks a ticket to watch a 78-year-old man sing karaoke.�

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Did you hear about the guy who left his family in Rhode Island 10 years ago and never sent a penny in child support? He recently returned to try to collect half of the $350,000 insurance money his estranged wife received when their daughter died in a car accident. Writer Tony Peyser says the guy’s picture will appear next year in the American Heritage Dictionary as the first definition of the word “gall.�

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When reader Mel Smith of Los Angeles recently called his granddaughter, Nicole, to wish her a happy eighth birthday, he asked her how it felt not to be 7 any longer.

She replied: “There’s not much different, except I’m starting to forget things.�