The Anecdote Bin

BILL R. writes from Norwalk, Conn., to tell us about a bandleader friend of his who, before he decided to stay away from that first drink, had an experience with that great American institution, the Chinese laundry. Seems that after a four-day binge, the music maker dropped in at his favorite establishment to pick up a dress shirt he had left there a week before. Wing Foo (to coin a name) didn't understand English, and Chinese was Greek to our hero, so it took some time and a lot of sign language for the Chinese to get the message across that the bandleader owed him no money. The reason was that Wing Foo had sliced this customer's shirt down the middle, had laundered one half of it and had reassembled the shirt for a window display labeled BEFORE AND AFTER.