“Coming right up. Say… Why the sad face, Bud?”

“It’s my wife. I think she’s having an affair with John Kerry.”

“Uh? The presumed candidate for the Democrat’s presidential election ticket? Why do you say that?”

“Because, when I got home today, I found this love letter from Kerry to my wife in the mail.”

“Let me see that. Hmmm…”

“What’s this world coming to, Joe? A man works hard all his life – gets married, divorced, married – and for what? So that the first Massachusetts senator who rolls into town can sweep his wife off of her feet?”

“Don’t start jumping to conclusions, Bud.”

“But which other way can I jump, Joe? How can a guy like me compete with John Kerry and all that money?”

“Uh?”

“I’ll bet he promised to take her to all those concerts she keeps talking about. I told her we couldn’t afford Celine Dion and Elton John. I told her our budget couldn’t handle tickets for the Eagles. Ha! Little did I know she was going to dump me for the next smooth-talking politician to come along.”

“Wait a second, Bud.”

“No, you wait a second, Joe. You don’t know what it’s like to see your wife swooning over some guy who’s knee-deep in ketchup money. Thanks to his wife’s family fortune, Kerry can take my wife to any concert she chooses, including the Melvins, Eric Clapton and Simon & Garfunkel. It’s just not fair.”

“I think you have it all wrong, Bud. This letter from John Kerry to your wife isn’t a love letter.”

“It isn’t?”

“Oh, no. This is a letter sent out to voters asking for campaign contributions. Your wife’s name must have somehow ended up on a campaign mailing list.”

“What? You mean to tell me that my wife isn’t going to run off with John Kerry, and that he isn’t going to cover her from head to toe with minks and diamonds, and take her to see Prince and Norah Jones?”

“Not even KISS, or Orgy. This is a letter asking for campaign contributions. Pure and simple.”

“Whoa! For a moment there I thought I had lost her. Just like I lost my first wife.”

“Your first wife? The exotic dancer? What ever happened to her, anyway?”

“Well, back in ’96 she got a letter just like this one from Bill Clinton.”

“Oh, come on now, Bud. You’re not claiming that a 1996 letter from Slick Willie was also a love letter, are you?”

“Of course not, Joe. That letter from Bill Clinton was also asking for campaign contributions. It was just like this one. Well, almost the same. There was one slight difference between Clinton’s letter to my first wife and Kerry’s letter to my second wife.”

“Oh? What’s that, Bud?”

“Clinton’s letter to my first wife was personally delivered.”