Judge: "This is a very brutal act. If you want the court to reduce your sentence, you'll need to explain the motive behind your action."
Man: "She’s so dumb that I just had to kill her."
Judge: "What you're saying isn't helping your case at all. If you don’t want the jury to condemn you right away, you should offer at least one mitigating explanation."
The man starts talking: "It happened like this. We live in an apartment building. On the first floor, there’s a family with three kids. The problem is that their kids are naturally small—between 80 and 90 cm tall. One day, I came home, and my wife said, 'Something’s wrong with our neighbors. Their kids are real Pyrenees.'
I said, 'No, you mean Pygmies.'
'No,' she said, 'A pygmy is something under your skin that causes freckles.'
I said, 'That’s pigment.'
'No,' she said, 'pigment is what the ancient Romans wrote on.'
I said, 'That’s parchment!'
'No,' she said, 'parchment is when a poet starts something but doesn’t finish it...'
'Your Honor, you have to appreciate that I held back from mentioning the word fragment. I sat down in my chair and started reading the newspaper. Then she came up to me and said something that made me realize she belonged in a mental institution.'
She said, 'Honey, look at this!'
She opened a book, pointed to a passage, and said: 'The parasol of the handbag was the teacher of the pimp 15.'
I took the book and calmly explained, 'But darling, this is a French book. It says: La Marquise de Pompadour est la Maitresse de Louis XV, which means: "The Marquise de Pompadour was the mistress of Louis XV."'
'No,' my wife insisted, 'you have to translate it word for word: La Marquise = parasol, Pompadour = handbag, la Maitresse = teacher, Louis XV = pimp 15. And I should know; I hired an excellent legionnaire to teach me French.'
I said, 'You mean a lector.'
'No,' she said, ' Lector was an ancient Greek hero.'
I said, 'That was Hector, and he was from Troy.'
'No,' she said, 'Hector is a unit of area.'
I said, 'That’s a hectare!'
'No,' she said, 'a hectare is a drink of the gods.'
I said, 'That’s nectar!'
'No,' she said, 'Nectar is a river in southern Germany.'
I said, 'That’s the Neckar!'
Then my wife said, 'You remember that lovely song about the Rhine and the Nectar that we sang as a duo recently?'
I said, 'That’s called a duet.'
'No,' she said, 'a duet is when two men fight with swords.'
I said, 'That’s a duel!'
'No,' she said, 'a duel is a hole in a hill where trains go through.'
'And at that point, Your Honor, I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed a hammer and beat her to death.'
There was a moment of silence. Then the judge stood up and declared the verdict:
'Acquitted! I would have killed her at Hector.'"
