{"id":27411,"date":"2012-04-12T12:05:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T17:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=27411"},"modified":"2012-04-12T12:34:03","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T17:34:03","slug":"the-moral-of-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=27411","title":{"rendered":"The Moral Of The Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was standing at the bar at Keegans with Mr. D, Speed Gibson, Night Writer and some stranger I&#8217;d never met, a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>D said &#8220;Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion\u00a0allowed per passenger.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We all groaned in agony.<\/p>\n<p>Speed followed up: &#8220;Did you hear that NASA recently put a bunch of Holsteins into low earth orbit? They called it the herd shot &#8217;round the world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There were face-palms all around &#8211; except for the stranger, who seemed to be getting a little agitated.<\/p>\n<p>Not to be outdone, Night spoke up next: &#8221;\u00a0\u00a0Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root\u00a0canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We all theatrically slapped at Night &#8211; except for the stranger, who visibly seethed with rage.<\/p>\n<p>Terry Keegan walked up behind the bar. \u00a0&#8220;Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in\u00a0the craft, it sank proving once again that you can&#8217;t have your kayak and\u00a0heat it, too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We all rubbed our foreheads in mock pain &#8211; except for the stranger, whose face turned red, with flecks of spittle forming around his lips.<\/p>\n<p>It was my turn: &#8220;A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in<br \/>\nthe lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, \u00a0the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. &#8220;But why?&#8221; \u00a0they asked, as they moved off. &#8220;Because,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I can&#8217;t stand chess nuts\u00a0boasting in an open foyer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Everyone theatrically held their stomachs in mock agony &#8211; except for the stranger. \u00a0The man &#8211; in his mid to late sixties, sallow, wearing a U of M sweater &#8211; took a step back, bellowed something nonsensical, and pulled a large knife from his back pocket.<\/p>\n<p>I kicked him hard in the groin. \u00a0One of the others &#8211; D, Speed or Night, can&#8217;t remember which &#8211; took a snap-kick at the hand with the knife, which flew up in the air. \u00a0Keegan caught it, pommel-side down, like you&#8217;re supposed to catch flying knives. \u00a0We grabbed the man and held him for the police.<\/p>\n<p>Which just goes to show you should never bring a knife to a pun fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was standing at the bar at Keegans with Mr. D, Speed Gibson, Night Writer and some stranger I&#8217;d never met, a few weeks ago. D said &#8220;Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion\u00a0allowed per passenger.&#8221; We all groaned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27422,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27411\/revisions\/27422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}