On the Right

A joke I laughed at 50 years ago features a man who at the end of the first race was up $200. At the end of the fifth race, up $20,000. At the end of the eighth, he is—wiped out. He makes his disconsolate, infuriated way to the parking lot and passes by a stranger who is bent over, fastening a shoelace. The hapless bettor aims a furious roundhouse kick, sprawling his victim on the ground. “Whaddaya do that for?” the shocked stranger says angrily.

He is answered, “You’re always tying your shoelace!”