Three writers, Al, Ben and Ross, were attending a Convention for authors in New York City at the Marriott Marquis Hotel where they were sharing a suite on the 75th floor.
After the Convention finished for the day they went to the Hotel's main bar for a round of drinks. They then decided to go to their room to change for the Convention Dinner which was being held at the Metropolitan Museum in Central Park.
When Ross went to get the key the receptionist told him, "I'm sorry. All of our elevators have broken down. A mechanic is on the way, however the lifts won't be fixed for at least two hours. You will have to use the stairs."
Now, Al was a writer of funny stories. Ben was a writer of scary stories and Ross was a writer of tragic tales. To make things interesting on the way up they decided that Al would tell funny jokes as they walked between floors 1 and 25, Ben would tell scary stories as they walked up between floors 26 and 50 and Ross would tell a tragic tale as they walked up from Level 51 to their suite on Level 75.
They started to climb the stairs and Al started to tell funny stories. By the time they reached the 25th floor they were laughing hysterically.
Then Ben started to tell scary stories. By the time they reached the 50th floor, Al and Ross were hugging each other in fear.
Then Ross started to tell his tragic story. As he started, he stopped and looked at them and said, "Right now, I had better tell you a different really tragic tale."
Al and Ben looked at Ross, wondering what he was going to say.
Then slowly he said, "There was once a man named Ross who forgot to get the room key from the receptionist..."
