The following humorous anecdote circulating on the Internet was sent to us by e-mail:

Curtis and Leroy saw an ad in the Starkville Daily in Starkville, Miss., and bought a mule for $100.

The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day. The next morning the farmer drove up and said “Sorry fellers, I have some bad news, the mule died last night.”

Curtis and Leroy replied “Well, then just give us our money back.”

The farmer said, “Can’t do that; I went and spent it already."

They said, “OK then, just bring us the dead mule.”

The farmer asked,“What in the world ya’ll do with a dead mule ?”

Curtis said, “We gonna raffle him off.”

The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead mule.”

Leroy answered, “We shore can. Heck, we don’t have to tell nobody he’s dead.”

A couple of weeks later the farmer ran into Curtis and Leroy and asked, “What’d you fellers ever do with that dead mule?”

They said, “We raffled him off just like we said we wuz gonna do,” and Leroy added, “Shucks we sold 500 tickets for $2 apiece and made a profit of $998.”

The farmer said, “My, didn’t anyone complain?”

Curtis said, “Well, the feller who won got upset so we gave him his $2 back.”

Curtis and Leroy now work for the government!

The following Facebook post (source unknown to us) regarding the economy also caught our eye:

The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail CEOs are now playing miniature golf. Exxon-Mobil laid off 25 Congressmen. Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore. A picture is now only worth 200 words.They renamed Wall Street "Wal-Mart Street" and, finally, I called the Suicide Hotline. I got a call center in Pakistan and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 08/24/2011