Ooooo ....
Hell jokes. Well, there's this chappie goes down to Hell almost as a matter of course when he pops his clogs, given his earthly lifestyle which (to not put to fine a point on it) consisted almost exclusively of wine, women and song, not necessarily in that order or in equal parts.
He's met by Old Nick (who doubles as a linguist on this Board from time to time). The slippery-heeled not-so-dearly departed's bad habits rather appealed to him
and it was a slow day, and so The Man decides to give cut the new arrival some slack.
"Right, my man, I'm going to let you inspect three rooms," says Satan. "You can look inside all of them as many times as you like, but you
must choose one of them. Once you've gone inside your room of choice, that's it. It will then be your home for the rest of eternity or until the last trump, whichever is the least recent."
Our newly-minted deceased is ever so slightly apprehensive, but what choice does he have? He is, after all, only a tyro in Hell, and he doesn't know the rules or the wrinkles or how to work the system. That may come, but now is now.
"Room One," says Da Boss, and throws back the door. Inside is a huge pit full of faeces. Inside, damned souls are tiptoeing around up to their necks in it, trying to keep their heads above ... water, so to speak.
"W-e-e-l-l, I dunno," demurs our dismayed, deceased diddy-bopper. "Homely. It has possibilities. Something I think I'd have to work up to, Sire. Maybe I'll just have a quick peek at Room 2?"
"Done!" cries the Devil and slams the door shut on Room One, opening it again immediately. It has now clearly become Room Two, because while there is again a pit full of faeces, it's not so deep. Damned souls again, of course, milling around in it, indescribable smell, no one looks very happy, but there
is one good point. They're only in it up to their waists.
Our late lecher purses his lips and strokes his chin while the thinks about it. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if the first one was bad and the second one was better, that may well be an indicator that the third could just conceivably be even better yet, relatively speaking. Which is just as well, because our damnable dude ain't no genius.
"Oh, what the hell, let's look at Room Three," he enthuses. The Devil obliging slams the door and opens it again. Inside is definitely different. Yes, there's the pit, and yes it's got faeces in it, but the penitents are only up to their knees. And what's more, there's a nice shiny chrome tea trolley by the door with tea, coffee and there's even some of those dinky little rice cakes which health-conscious people like to nibble at and pretend that they're actually eating something that's good for them.
One look at the wraithlike wiggin wonder's face tells the Devil that he's made his choice, and he prods him in and shuts the door. Our friend shrugs, pours himself a cuppa and gingerly steps down into the mire. He's just starting in on his rice cake and gently blowing on his coffee to cool it when the door swings open again. Pouf, and the tea trolley, the cups, the coffee and tea, and even the rice cakes have disappeared.
"Okay folks," the Devil shouts, "Coffee break's over. Back on your heads!"
