John, a young man with a very rich but miserly father who was entering his freshman year at Harvard was surprised to learn when he moved into the dorm that he just couldn’t fit in without a raccoon coat. He pleaded with his father that he just had to have a raccoon coat or would never make it at school. After several letters back and forth his father agreed to purchase a beautiful coat on one condition. The condition was that the coat must not be damaged in any way during the next four years. If there was any damage to the coat at all after four years the John would be disinherited and have to go find a job on his own. He would not be allowed to join the father in his very prosperous business. John quickly agreed to the conditions without thinking of the implications.

The father bought the best raccoon coat money could buy, then had several members of his staff count the number of hairs on the coat. They found there were exactly 1,524,203 hairs. A second group of staff members recounted and confirmed there were 1,524,203 hairs. The coat was then carefully sealed in a package and sent off to Harvard with a note informing the John of the hair count.

When John received the coat he was overjoyed that his ostracism by his fellow students was soon to end. Then he read the enclosed letter. He showed the coat to all his friend but was afraid to wear it under any circumstances for fear of damaging it in some manner. After everyone had seen the coat he resealed it in its box and placed it on the shelf in his closet. He often showed the coat to new friends but could never work up the courage to wear it until his senior year.

Harvard was playing Yale for the conference championship in football. He bought 9 tickets to the game- 3 seats behind his, the seats to either side, and the three seats in front. He was going to be damned sure no one spilled drink or mustard on his beloved coat. He didn’t enjoy the game at all because of his concern for his coat. Immediately after the game he returned the coat to the closet where it had been for three years after carefully spending several hours recounting the hairs. All 1,524,203 were intact but after such a tedious job he made a mistake. He didn’t reseal the bag in which he had been storing the coat these many years.

During the night a campus moth crawled under the door of the closet, fluttered up onto the box and crawled inside. He had a feast but being a small moth one hair was all his tiny stomach could hold. He emerged from the box, fluttered from the closet and flew up onto the light fixture to get warm and have a nap.

The next day the hapless student decided to recheck the hair-count. It took him hours but when finished he knew he was in trouble. There were only 1,524,202 hairs. He wailed in despair at the top of his lungs. All his fraternity brothers came running into the room expecting the worst. John recounted the whole story about his fathers conditions and his impendingfate. In all the commotion the little moth asleep on the light fixture awakened. He listened to the story in amazement . As the whole story unfolded the moth became terribly sad …

Have you ever seen a moth bawl?

The salesman took him to an outside tank, in which a pod of dolphins were frolicking happily. “These may LOOK like ordinary dolphins,” he told the man, “but these were given to us to sell by a genetics research group studying ways to genetically reduce aging in humans. It seems the experiment was a success on these little guys.

They can’t survive out in the wild anymore, they’re too tame, but as long as they don’t catch any severe debilitating diseases, they will live more or less forever.” The man is impressed, and being the wealthy man that he is, drops the cash to buy the dolphins and have a suitable home for them installed in his backyard.

The man became quite attached to his pets and took very good care of them, and they frolicked about in their tank happily for nearly fifteen years, much longer than any of his other pets had ever survived.

The man spared no expense for their care, and seriously considered leaving his multi-million dollar estate to them in his will. But one day they began to seem a little droopy and not very energetic. Alarmed, the man rang for the vet, who told him that alas, his precious dolphins had contracted a rare icthyoid disease, and the only antibiotic for them had to be derived from the feathers of the blue savannah parrot that lived on the jungle fringes of Africa.

The man didn’t think twice. He called up his travel agent and booked the next day’s flight to Africa, and rented a jeep and a guide and pack boy to help him bag some of these parrots. They drove up to the edge of the jungle, stopped the jeep and trudged into the trees on an old native hunting trail, nets in hand. After about six hours of this, they had bagged two of the parrots, and the man decided that would be enough feather to make enough antibiotic for his pets. So he trudges back out toward the jeep – and freezes. A huge, stately lion had decided to take a nap right in the middle of the path between him and the jeep. He looks over his shoulder and realizes that his companions have fled leaving him literally holding the bag, and the growth is too thick on either side of the trail to make it past without waking the lion. So he backs up about fifty feet, gets a running start, and leaps over the beast and makes a dash for the jeep and drives off for the airport.

Just as he is nearing sight of the airport, he hears a siren and sees some flashing lights. He dutifully pulls over, and a policeman steps up to him and says, “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re under arrest – ”

The man interrupts him, “Oh, please, officer, I’ll pay any fine at all! I need to get these parrots back so I can make a vaccine for my dolphins so they don’t die!”

“Well, sir,” the policeman replies, “I’m afraid that’s the root of the problem. I have to arrest you for taking mynahs over the stately lion for immortal porpoises.”

While there the poppa dog entered himself in the show. Lo and behold, he came away with the blue ribbon for ‘best of show’. On the way home he suggested to his son that they stop by the local pub to celebrate with a beer or two. The puppy drank sodas while his father had several beers.

When they got home poppa realized that they had left the ribbon on the bar.

The puppy said, “You’ve had enough to drink already, Pop. I’ll run back for it.”

When he climbed up onto the bar stool the bartender asked, “What’ll you have young man?”

The puppy replied, “I’ll have Pap’s Blue Ribbon, please!”

“But please,” exclaims the frog, “I really need this loan.”

“Do you have any collateral?” asks Ms. Black.

“Only this,” he says. With that, the frog pulls from his pocket an object and hands it to Ms. Black. Not knowing what it was, but being too embarrassed to say so, she takes the object to the bank manager and explains about the frog and his request for a loan.

“Sir, I don’t even know what this is but it’s all he has for collateral,” she tells him.

The manager takes the objects, looks at it for a moment, hands it back and tells her, “Why, it’s a nick-knack, Patty Black, give the frog a loan!”