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A man
named Ralph goes into a bar, looking very depressed. A friend approaches him and
asks, 'Why the long face, Ralph?'
'Oh, I'm just bored. I know every person in the entire world now, and there's
just nothing left to challenge me.'
His friend says, 'No, you can't know everyone. Do you know Paul McCartney?'
He says, 'Sure, Paul's an old friend of mine. Here, I'll show you.' He goes over
to a phone and dials a number. His friend overhears a British accent, 'Hey
Ralph, how ya doing?'
He talks for a while, but when Ralph hangs up, his friend is not really sure
that it was Paul McCartney on the other end of the line, so he asks him if he
knows the president. Ralph says, 'Sure, we go way back.' This time he lets him
listen in as he calls a private number. It sounds like the president on the
other end of the line, and they go into a big discussion of the current economic
scene, and Ralph offers a few suggestions. Drawing the conversation to a close,
Ralph wishes him well and hangs up.
His friend is a little dumbfounded at this point. 'Well, there must be someone
that you don't know.' He goes over a few more people in his mind, and thinks,
'He can't possibly know the Pope. After all, he's a Protestant.' But Ralph
claims to know him, so to convince himself otherwise, his friend decides to fly
both himself and Ralph to the Vatican to get positive proof of Ralph's claim.
They arrive at the Vatican, and Ralph suggests that his friend wait out in the
square until Ralph has cleared things with the Pope. He's standing in the
courtyard, when who walks out onto the balcony of the private residence, arm in
arm with the Pope, but Ralph.
Ralph looks down, sees that his friend has apparently passed out, and runs down
to see what can be done for him. 'What happened to you? Couldn't you accept the
fact that I really do know the Pope?'
'No, I'd begun to accept that possibility. But what really took my breath away
was some stranger standing next to me who said, "Who's that guy standing there
with Ralph?" '
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