Judge's gavelPaul stood before the judge, remorseful and feeling somewhat ashamed.  The judge was reading the document that had be placed before him regarding Paul’s case.  After a few moments of reading he looked up at Paul.

“Young man,” the judge said.  “This says that you have been charged with assault.  Is that correct?”

“Yes, Your Honour,” Paul replied.

“Well, assault is a serious offense.  It says here that you beat up your best friend.  I would like to hear your story.”

“It’s true.  My best friend, Jim, is the victim.  I broke his nose,” said Paul.

“Well, start at the beginning,” said the judge.

“Okay.  Jim and I have been friends for about 10 years now, since high school.  When we graduated I went into the family business.  We run a wholesale and retail flower business.

“Jim used to tease me about the business.  He would talk about how macho it is to run a flower shop.  It really started to bug me, so I talked to him about it.  I guess this was 2 or 3 years ago.  He was sorry about it and promised to stop teasing me.”

“And this is relevant to the assult?” asked the judge.

“Yes, Your Honour,” Paul continued.  “You see, on the night that this all happened, I had Jim and some other friends over for a Tom Hanks movie fest.  We were watching 3 of our favourites back to back.  The second movie happened to be Forrest Gump.”

“I loved that movie,” said the judge.  “‘Stupid is as stupid does.’ and all that.”

“Yes,” said Paul.  “Lot’s of memorable lines in that movie.  And that’s actually where the trouble started.

“After the movie was done, I headed over to the bar.  I asked everyone if they would like something to drink.  And then Jim jumped up and yelled ‘Rum, florist! Rum!'”


Gavel image by creationc at stock.xchng