For Habs fans, laughter is the best medicine

According to Those Who Should Know, Monday last was "Blue Monday", the saddest day of winter, perhaps of the entire year. Crappy weather, holiday bills coming due, no holiday in store until Easter... and, for fans of the Montréal Canadiens (like the young lady at right), yet another disappointing hockey game.

Now that I have your attention... no, this is not the introduction to another moan by Poor Len Canayen. I asked him if he planned on second-guessing Marc Bergevin this week, but he said no, he'd rather shoot him, if he should catch him strolling down The Main.

He went on to say that when the news is grim, the best thing is share a good laugh, and, good fellow that he is, volunteered this supposedly true bit of testimony from a criminal trial.

Counsel: What happened after you had been listening to the music for awhile?
Witness: We got held up.
Counsel: And what happened? Would you give the judge the details of that?
Witness: Well, they told us to get up against the wall, throw our money on the floor, and drop our pants.
Counsel: And what did you do?
Witness: Got against the wall, threw my pants down, and threw our money down.
Counsel: I mean after you got up against the wall and went through -- or followed his directions, what happened?
Witness: Cracked up laughing, because one of the other guys -- guys in on it -- dropped his pants, too.
Counsel: Excuse me? One of the robbers?
Witness: Right.
Counsel: And what happened as he did that?
Witness: They told him, "Not you, stupid!" And he picked up the money.

Source: Disorderly Conduct: Verbatim Excerpts from Actual Court Cases, selected by Rodney R. Jones, Charles M. Sevilla and Gerald F. Uelmen. Illustrations by Lee Lorenz, one of the great cartoonists of the New Yorker. W.W. Norton & Co., 1987.