Careful What You Ask

On the day our Illinois Governor was expelled from office, the following article appeared in The Rolling Stone, a paper published by the Stevenson County Senior Center.

In a trial in a small Southern town a prosecuting attorney called his first withes, a grandmotherly, elderly woman, to the stand. He approached her and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know me?” She responded, “Why yes, I do know you, Mr. Nelson, I’ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you’ve a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you’ll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper publisher. Yes, I know you.”

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?”

She replied again, “Why yes, I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He is lazy, bigoted and he has a drinking problem. He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention his cheating on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.”

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and in a quiet voice said, “If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you both to prison.”