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Thursday, September 01, 2011

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Ten

The A Joke A Day folks continued their incredible losing streak this week with more sexist jokes about wives loathing their husbands, with motorists trying to fool cops, with boring proto-Dilbert office-work-sucks style jokes, with "hilarious" children (they say the fuckiest things!), & with jokes written by comedians new to the planet. But this one struck me as peculiar, & although it is part of the A Joke A Day system, it feels more like it's supposed to be true, doesn't it?

Insurance Company

A Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against .... get this .... fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of fabulous cigars, and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man stated that he had lost the cigars in "a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion. The man sued ... and won!! In delivering his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable, and also guaranteed that it would insure the cigars against fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire," it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the judge's ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in "the fires." After the man cashed his check, however, the insurance company had him arrested... on 24 counts of arson! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive one year terms.


Needless to say, there's nothing true about this, & it appears to have actually started out as a joke, but made its way, through retelling online, into "urban legend" status. As the page at snopes.com explains:

As to whether there could be any truth to the legend's premise, insurance policies are generally written so that deliberate actions on the part of the policyholders cannot trigger payouts. Furthermore, destroying your own property isn't arson, as long as the act isn't intended to defraud anyone. If a court had already ruled that the insurance company was required to pay, then obviously no fraud was committed, and thus the burning could not be considered arson.

Not so funny now, eh, Mr. A Joke A Day?

As a bonus, I give you this week's Non-Joke. Oh, it looks like a joke. It even has a certain rhythm like a joke. But is it a joke? No! It's A Joke A Day!

A new miracle doctor was in town. He could cure anything and anybody, and everyone was amazed. Everyone except for Mr. Smith, the town’s grouch So Mr. Smith went to this 'miracle doctor' to prove that he wasn't anybody special. So he goes and tells the doctor, "Hey, doc, I have lost my sense of taste. I can't taste nothing', so what are you going to do?"
The doctor scratches his head and mumbles to himself a little, then tells Mr. Smith, "What you need is jar number 43."
Jar number 43? Mr. Smith wonders. So the doctor brings the jar and tells Mr. Smith to taste it. He tastes it and immediately spits it out, "This is gross!" he yells.
"I just restored your sense of taste Mr. Smith," says the doctor.
So Mr. Smith goes home very mad. One month later, Mr. Smith goes back to the doctor along with a new problem, "Doc," he starts, "I can't remember!"
Thinking he got the doctor, the doctor scratches his head and mumbles to himself a little and tells Mr. Smith, "What you need is jar number 43..."
Before the doctor finished his sentence, Mr. Smith fled the office.

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