The Importance of Having Your Hearing Checked

Here's a little piece of seasonal humor that I thought I'd pass along.  It's a joke that appears in Mike Carey's wonderful novel The Devil You Know, roughly transcribed with one or two small editorial changes by yours truly.  

This big expert on paranormal phenomena is doing a lecture tour of the UK and he's holding a public talk on a Friday night.  When he gets to the lecture hall, it's packed.  He shuffles his notes, clears his throat and says, "Let's just see where we stand.  How many people here believe in ghosts?"

Every hand in the room goes up.

"Excellent," says the professor.  "That's what I value: truly open minds.  Okay, how many of you have actually seen a ghost?"

Half the hands go down, half stay up.

"Good enough," says the professor.  "And out of you lot, how many have spoken to a ghost?"

Maybe twenty hands stay up and the professor nods.

"Yes, that takes some courage, doesn't it?  And how many of you have touched a ghost?"

All but three hands go down.

Finally the professor says, "How many of you have made love with a ghost?"

Two hands go down, but one right at the back of the room stays up.  It's a little old guy in a grubby mackintosh.

"Sir, you amaze me!" says the professor.  "I've asked that question a thousand times and nobody has ever answered yes to it.  I've never met anybody before you who's had sex with a ghost."

"Ghost?" says the old guy.  "Oh, sorry.  I thought you said goat."