Hero
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A man
walks into the market followed by his ten-year-old son. The
kid is spinning a 25-cent piece in the air and catching it
between his teeth. As they walk through the market someone
bumps into the boy at just the wrong moment and the coin
goes straight into his mouth and lodges in his throat. He
immediately starts choking and going blue in the face and
Dad starts panicking, shouting and screaming for help.
A middle-aged, fairly unremarkable man in a gray suit is
sitting at a coffee bar in the market reading his newspaper
and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion
he looks up, puts his coffee cup down on the saucer, neatly
folds his newspaper and places it on the counter. He gets up
from his seat and makes his unhurried way across the market.
Reaching the boy (who is still standing, but just barely)
the man carefully takes hold of the kid's testicles and
squeezes gently but firmly. After a few seconds the boy
convulses violently and coughs up the 25-cent piece, which
the man catches in his free hand. Releasing the boy, the man
hands the coin to the father and walks back to his seat in
the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no lasting
ill effects, the father rushes over to the man and starts
effusively thanking him. The man looks embarrassed and
brushes off the father's thanks. As the man is about to
leave, the father asks one last question: "I've never
seen anybody do anything like that before -it was fantastic
- what are you, a surgeon or something like that?"
"Oh, good heavens, no", the man replies, "I
work for the IRS." |
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