Another kind of chestnut

A really funny story seems to live for ever, which is probably why old jokes are called chestnuts. A comedian once asked," Why tell them new ones when they're still laughing at the old ones?"

Florida columnist Frank Kaiser's Suddenly Senior weekly newsletter has given new life to a particularly wizened chestnut, attributing it (to our surprise) to an Oz newspaper:

From Australia‘s Sydney Morning Herald comes this story of a central west couple who drove their car to Kmart, only to have their car break down in the parking lot. The man told his wife to carry on with the shopping while he fixed the car there in the lot.

The wife returned later to see a small group of people near the car. On closer inspection, she saw a pair of male legs protruding from under the chassis. Although the man was in shorts, you could see right up the legs of his shorts, and his lack of underpants turned his private parts into glaringly public ones.

Unable to stand the embarrassment, she dutifully stepped forward, quickly put her hand UP his shorts and tucked everything back into place.

On regaining her feet she looked across the hood and found herself staring at her husband who was standing idly by.

The mechanic, however, had to have three stitches in his head.

It's a good story that must have aroused chuckles from millions of people around the world.

According to Snopes' Urban Legends, it's been doing the rounds since the late 1950s. It has been attributed to various newspapers, including (since 2001), the Sydney Morning Herald.