Jim and Edna ( I think they’re your aunt and uncle on your mother’s side ) were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, uncle Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Aunt Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled uncle Jim out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of aunt Edna’s heroic act, she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.
When she went to tell aunt Edna the news she said, “Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you’re being discharged; since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of another patient. I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness. The bad news is, Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself with his bathrobe belt in the bathroom, right after you saved him…. I am so sorry, but he’s dead.”
Aunt Edna replied “He didn’t hang himself, I put him there to dry…. How soon can I go home?”
via email from Bonnie Knutson, Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:06:37 -0600