Dear Pauline ......

A priest, a rabbi and a politician were sitting at a bar late one night. The priest was a little drunk and was complaining about the cost of insurance for the Popemobile. The politician advised the priest to increase taxes on retirement pensions to pay for it. The rabbi thought it would be a good idea to replace the Popemobile with a more economical vehicle. Neither recommendation sounded like a good idea to the priest and he ordered another round of drinks.

The priest asked his drinking mates if either of them knew about short term car insurance. The rabbi said he had heard of short term car insurance, but didn’t know any details about it. However, he knew a friend who could get it wholesale. The politician said he would raise taxes on the poor and use the money to study the issue for a few years. The rabbi said that sounded like a lot of work to find out about short term car insurance, but the politician said it would be no problem. Besides, the politician explained, when the study was completed, any findings would be completely ignored.

The rabbi wanted to know why the Pope needed the big Popemobile to drive around in. He said it would be better to just put the Pope in a bullet-proof outfit and have him ride in a cheap old banger. The priest was taken aback with the recommendation. He explained how regal the Popemobile is and it would be a travesty for the Pope to be seen in some common rag-top. The politician suggested he trade the Popemobile in for an armoured limousine. No one could see the Pope in a limo, but he would be safe while traveling and it might be pretty cheap to protect him with a short term car insurance policy. There would have to be a special loading on the premium because of the extra weight but a special tax could be levied on the unemployed to pay for it.

After some more drinks, the three men became very intoxicated and unruly. As is often the case when the three started getting drunk, the barman worried how to handle them. He couldn’t throw them out of the bar like regular drunks. He had to treat these sops with caution or the politician might raise his taxes and the two clergymen might somehow cause him to go to hell. He was scared of hell, so he just kept pouring.

It was eerie, the barman thought, how much the three really had in common. They were all public figures, they never worked a day in their lives and they were all raging alcoholics. Although they were technically serving the needs of the common people, they never had to experience what regular folks do. They never had to stand in line for a table or worry about their retirements.

Finally at closing time, the barman was able to usher the three men out the front door into the night. They each got into their own cars and swerved their way home. The barman wondered if they had short term car insurance, so that their no claims bonuses would be protected when they finished up in the ditch by the side of the road, as they did every Friday.