The Telegram
Two sisters, one a brunette and the other a blonde, inherit the family ranch. Unfortunately, after just a couple of years, they find themselves in financial trouble. In order to keep the bank from repossessing the ranch, they need to purchase a bull which will enable them to breed their own stock. The brunette balances their checkbook, then takes their last $500 to a ranch out west where a man has a prize bull for sale.
As she’s leaving for the other ranch, she tells her sister, “When I get there, if I decide to buy the bull, I’ll contact you to drive out after me and haul it home.”
The brunette arrives at the man’s ranch, checks the bull out, and decides that she does want to buy it. The man tells her that she can buy it for $499, no less. She pays him and then drives to the nearest town to send her sister a telegram to tell her the news.
She enters the telegraph office, and says, “I’d like to send my sister a telegram telling her that I’ve bought a bull for our ranch. I need her to hitch the trailer to our pickup truck and drive out here so we can haul it home.”
The telegraph operator tells her that he would be pleased to help her, and then adds, “It’s only 99 cents per word.”
After paying for the bull, the brunette only has $1 left and realizes she’ll only be able to send her sister one word. After thinking about it for a few moments, she says, “Ok, I’d like you to send her the word ‘comfortable’.”
The confused telegraph operator scratches his head and says, “How is she going to know that you want her to hitch the trailer to your pickup truck and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send her the word, ‘comfortable’?”
“Oh, my sister’s blonde,” the brunette explains, “she’ll read it very slowly.”