It's hard to tell if this is authentic or not. It's easy to confirm (e.g. by Google Book Search) that it was published in Reader's Digest by Jerome Weidman in 1

It's hard to tell if this is authentic or not. It's easy to confirm (e.g. by Google Book Search) that it was published in Reader's Digest by Jerome Weidman in 1955. What's not clear is whether the incident ever happened or to what extent Weidman embellished it. I wouldn't hold the style of the piece against it; everything in Reader's Digest is like that, or used to be, and 1955 was probably a good year for smarm. On the other hand, "it appeared in Reader's Digest" isn't much evidence of anything.