A certain lawyer was
A certain lawyer was quite wealthy and had a summer house in the country, to which he retreated for several weeks every year. Each summer, the lawyer would invite a different friend of his (no, that's not the punch line) to spend a week or two at this home, which happened to be in a backwoods.
On one particular occasion, he invited a Czechoslovakian friend to stay with him. The friend, eager to get a freebie off a lawyer, agreed. They had a splendid time in the country - rising early and living in the great outdoors.
Early one morning, the lawyer and his Czechoslovakian companion went out to pick berries for their morning breakfast. As they went around the berry patch, gathering blueberries and raspberries in tremendous quantities, along came two huge Bears - a male and a female. The lawyer, seeing the two bears and sensing danger, immediately dashed for cover. His friend, however, being ignorant of nature, was not so lucky. The male bear charged the paralyzed Czechoslovakian, then swallowed him whole.
The lawyer, instilled with fright, rushed back to his car and sped into town to get the local sheriff. The sheriff, upon hearing the lawyer's unsettling story, grabbed his rifle and dashed back to the berry patch with the lawyer following closely behind.
Sure enough, the two bears were still there. ''He's in THAT one!'', cried the lawyer, pointing to the male, all the while visions of lawsuits from his friend's family lagged in the back of his mind. He just had to save his friend. The sheriff looked at the two bears, and without batting an eye, leveled his rifle, took careful aim, and SHOT THE FEMALE.
''What did you do that for!'', exclaimed the lawyer, ''I said he was in the other one!''
''Exactly,'' replied the sheriff, ''Would YOU believe a lawyer who told you the Czech was in the male?''
Blind pilots
One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are seated, waiting for the cockpit crew to show up so they can get under way.
The pilot and copilot finally appear in the rear of the plane, and begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle.
Both appear to be blind. The pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and left as he stumbles down the aisle, and the copilot is using a guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with huge sunglasses.
At first the passengers do not react; thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke. However, after a few minutes the engines start revving and the airplane starts moving down the runway.
The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness, whispering among themselves and looking desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.
Then the airplane starts accelerating rapidly and people begin panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more hysterical.
Finally, when the airplane has less than 20 feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone screams at once, and at the very last moment the airplane lifts off and is airborne.
Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of relief and turns to the pilot: "You know, one of these days the passengers aren't going to scream, and we're gonna get killed!