January 5, 2007

The geneticist and his clone

A geneticist and his assistant had been working on 30 years on a cloning project. Finally the day come when the assistant said, "It's been great, but I think it's time for me to retire." The geneticist told him, "But we're almost finished with this experiment, could you wait another year?""No sir, my mind's made up. It's been good working with you," came the reply, as the assistant began packing his things.

The geneticst grew frantic. "But I can't complete my work without you! Could you at least stay until I have made a clone of you?"The assistant pondered on this for a few moments, and then agreed. It wasn't very long before the geneticst was able to successfully create an identical clone of the assistant. His assistant left as scheduled, and the clone took over the duties.

All was good, except for one minor flaw: the clone swore worse than a drunken sailor. Time and time again, the geneticst tried to reprimand the clone on his behavior, but it was no use. The more reprimands the clone recieved, the more foul his language would become.Finally, the geneticst got an idea. "Come with me...we'll go out to my cabin in the woods, and we can spend a weekend to just get away from it all."

A few days later, they set off on their trip, with no sign of civilization for miles around.The geneticst had hoped to use the peace and beauty of nature to snap the clone out of his language problems. But the plan failed. On one of their hikes, as they were nearing the mountain top, the clone started to spew forth insults so severe that even the most weathered sailor would have blushed. The geneticst had enough and yelled at the clone, "What am I going to do with you?! You can't go on like this, with your constant flow of insults! Stop it NOW!"

The clone was startled, because in all this time, the geneticst had never once raised his voice. So startled, in fact, that he lost his grip and fell down...down...down the mountainside.The geneticst felt badly, and started the climb down the slope, hoping that things wouldn't be too bad. But it was worse than he feared. Several rangers had seen the man fall, and there was no hope for the clone. He had suffered fatal injuries, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The geneticst was eventually found guilty of making an obscene clone fall.