The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs is waiting for a meeting with President Bush. After a while, a guard approaches the minister and says, "Sir, the President apologises for the delay, some extra things have come up and need to be worked on. He requests that seeing as you have to wait for longer than anticipated, you might like to wait in the long room." The minister nods his head and is taken down a few corridors.
He is shown into a very long room, almost completely bare of furniture, except for a small table in the middle, which has a chair standing next to it, and two telephones on top, one blue and one red. He picks up the blue phone, and a voice says, "Heaven. Gabriel speaking." and the minister hangs up straight away out of shock. Then he tries the red phone, and a voice says, "Hi! This is Satan.
I can't come to the phone right now...." and the minister decides that he can hang up early on this call too. As he is leaving the long room, a guard stops him and says, "That'll be 1000 please." When the minister looks at the guard in shock, the guard follows with, "The calls are expensive because Heaven and Hell are a long way from here." Upon his return to Australia, the minister walks straight to his office and demands that the same facilities are set up for the use of the Australian government.
"But Minister, " say the staff members, "we've had those facilities for over 20 years." The minister demands to be shown, and a guard leads him to a long room, almost completely bare of furniture, except for a small table in the middle, which has a chair standing next to it, and two telephones on top, one blue and one red. He picks up the blue phone, and a voice says, "Heaven. Azrael speaking." As he is leaving the long room, guard stops him and says, "That'll be forty cents, please." The minister is shocked, and says, "but these phone calls were so expensive in the US" and the guard replies, "Ahh, but you're back in Australia now, mate, and Heaven is a local here!" |
