In a message dated 11/7/2002 2:50:32 PM Eastern Standard Time, FredNow writes:
> You know, I may as well put a stop to this here and now; I guess in > cyberspace no one can see you smile. It's a joke, I'm just > funnin' ya ... Fred, I had a pretty good laugh over this. I attempted a similar joke back in the very early days of the JMDL, involving a story about me and my wife trying to purchase a pair of Joni Mitchell paintings from a local woman who ran an ad in the local paper. It was a very long and harrowing story, where, when me and Ami finally arrived at the woman's house to buy the paintings, they were done by a John Mitchell, not Joni. The punch line was that "I told Amelia, it was just a false alarm". Of course the whole story was made up. For some reason, it just struck me as funny thing to do, and I was certain that once everyone else got to the punch line, they would know the whole thing was a joke. Instead, most of the people believed the story completely, and sent me and my wife (whose actual name is Betty!) all sorts of condolences, and warm wishes - admiring my ability to keep a sense of humor under such awful circumstances. Of course, I felt terrible, and immediately told everyone that it was a joke. Unfortunately, there were several people who found no humor in it what-so-ever. I got the nickname of the Jestering Jack-a-lope as a result of this episode. Ever since, I've been a little cautious about joking via email. :>) Jack
