Sleep Now...
 

Jake was watching vigilantly at his dying wife's side. ''Sleep now, its all right,'' he told her.

But she kept trying to sit up and said, ''Honey, I really need to tell you something.''

Finally Jake let her get it off her chest.

''Jake, honey, I need to tell you something before I die. During the last two months, I slept with your brother, your best friend and your father.''

''Don't worry about it,'' Jake said, ''I already know. Why do you think I poisoned you?''

Poetic justice! I like it!

My senior year of college, I was in a one-act play called "The Dying Wife" by Laurette Taylor, which enacts this very joke.

I played the wife. A freshman girl played my husband.

I still remember my big speech:

"It was on our honeymoon. I wanted to climb the Jung-Frau. You didn't want to, but I wanted to, and I did. I did. Indeed, I did. The man I climed it with... Silvanus Saxon. Everything seemed so... exalted. So... above the earth. The ice melted at my touch like... rose leaves. Rose leaves, Morrey! In my hair and in my brain. And I... And he... Oh, Morrey! We betrayed you!"