Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site whuxi.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!mhuxj!houxm!whuxl!whuxi!ktw From: ktw@whuxi.UUCP (WOLMAN) Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: Shaggy (Pained) Camel Story (Not for the Squeamish!) Message-ID: <217@whuxi.UUCP> Date: Fri, 21-Dec-84 09:21:57 EST Article-I.D.: whuxi.217 Posted: Fri Dec 21 09:21:57 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 02:08:11 EST Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, N.J. Lines: 33 During the heyday of Life magazine, a photographer hears about an extremely--and uncharacteristically--docile breed of camels indigenous to a particular sheikhdom in the Middle East. He "sells" his editor on the news value of the story, grabs a few cameras and a typewriter, and gets on the first plane to the sheikhdom. He goes to the Sheikh himself and explains why he's traveled across the world, and asks about the camels. "It's no big secret why they're docile," says the Sheikh. "As soon as the male camels have fathered a child, we castrate them. It's quite a ceremony. You wanna watch?" The photographer of course assents. That night, all the men assemble around a huge fire. Standing by a brazier in the middle of the circle is a huge man, stripped to the waist and wearing a black mask. A male camel is led out, trussed by five strong men, and held down. The man in the mask takes two pairs of tongs, seizes two red-hot bricks, and smashes them against the camel's testicles. The camel shrieks; the men untie it and it runs back to the pen. For the first time in a career in which he's photographed murders, executions, and wars, the photographer is sick to his stomach. When he recovers he approaches the Sheikh and blurts out, "Doesn't that HURT????" "I guess so," says the Sheikh, "but only if you get your thumb caught between the bricks." Ken Wolman Bellcore @ Livingston Asylum for the Mad whuxi!ktw