Thursday, September 06, 2007

Friends, Romans and Countrymen - lend me your ears

A classic dumb crook story. A colleague of mine has a husband on a local police force. Recently there was a home invasion, and in the fray the perpetrator's ear was removed from his head, involunatrily I might add. The perp fled, and the officers surmised that he would show up at one of the local hospitals to stem the open wound in his head.


Sure enough, he showed up at one of them and "Officer Bill" as we'll call her husband escorted the severed ear to the hospital. The perp claimed he had been assaulted by a gang and they had cut off his ear. Officer Bill confronted him and asked "is this your ear?". "That's not my ear" the perp replied. A moment of silence ensued and Officer Bill stated that this is really odd, as the 'victim' was missing an ear and they just happened to find one at the scene of a crime. "That's not my ear" the 'victim' restated. "But", he continued; "that's my earring".


The officers paused and contemplated the unusual situation. Home invasion, perp gets his ear cutoff, shows up at a hospital missing an ear, officer shows him an ear, perp claims it was not his ear - but it was his earring.


Officer Bill then asked the obvious question - "if that is not your ear, but it is your earring, how did it get in this ear"? "I don't know" said the 'victim'. But then a flash of brilliance to remedy an awkward situtation the 'victim' came to a logical conclusion! "But", he said; "since I'm missing an ear and my earring is in that ear, can we put the ear onto my head where I'm missing one"?


I swear that I'm not making this up, and that I've relayed the events as accurately as possible without any of my tendency to exaggerate.