The Funeral Procession

[Bob Dore]

A man was leaving a convenience store with his morning coffee when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.

A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one.

Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a dog on a leash.

Behind him, a short distance back, were about 200 men walking single file.

The man couldn't stand the curiosity. He respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said, 'I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this.
Whose funeral is it?'

'My wife's.

''What happened to her?'

The man replied, 'My dog attacked and killed her'

He inquired further, 'But who is in the second hearse?'

The man answered, 'My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her.'

A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two men.

'Can I borrow the dog?'

The man replied, 'Get in line.'

[JimN]

Not even a similar joke (except for the situation), but appeals to the sense of humour in the trade:

A taxi-driver is hailed in Charing Cross Road by a Chinese man and asked to put his meter on, pull round into Gerrard Street, and then to follow a funeral cortege to Kensal Rise Cemetery, wait an hour and follow the same procession back to Chinatown, where he will be paid.

He dutifully follows his instructions and eventually asks for and is given the sum shown on the meter.

But curiosity gets the better of him and he asks: "Why did you want me to drive all that way empty?".

"But your cab was not empty, my friend", comes the reply... "...you were carrying the souls of the ancestors of the man we buried".

"Oh", says the cabbie, with a note of rising expectaion... "How many of them were there?".

"Four", he is told.

"Well then", he says... "That'll be sixty pence extra". *





[* the extra charge for a passengers additional to the first has now been abolished in London.]