My wife, Kate, who is a flight attendant, came home with an urban legend about an aviator adulterer. It goes like this…

There’s this commercial airline pilot who flies between Montreal and Paris. We’ll call him Pierre.

One day Pierre says to his wife, “Honey, I’ve got to work a Paris flight,” and off he goes.

In actuality, naughty Pierre had a new mistress in Paris.

He wasn’t “working” the flight to France, but since he was a pilot, he could fly there for free. Once in Paris, he and his mistress had a wild night of too much champagne and kinky sex.

Alas, when poor Pierre woke up in his hotel room, he was short a kidney … and a mistress.

She had set him up.

After emergency surgery, Pierre returned home.

How he explained to his loving wife what happened was anyone’s guess because by then the story was on the news and the airline had released a statement that Pierre was not working at the time of the “kidney donation.”

It’s a cautionary tale of what happens to those who cheat on their mates.

The tale is nonsense.

You can’t slice out a kidney in a hotel room. Such a procedure would kill most donors and if the perpetrators were going to kill you anyway, they’d take both your kidneys.

Even so, what would they do with a pair of unattached kidneys?

Carry them around in a Ziploc bag?

“Hold on,” you say. “Maybe the kidney thief was interrupted in the midst of his diabolical crime by the chambermaid. That’s why only one organ was snatched.”

Maybe.

But surely the maid would have summoned the authorities — so the part about Pierre waking up the next morning doesn’t wash.

Even if you could come up with some logical explanation as to why only one kidney was taken, you’d still be faced with the arduous task of transplanting the organ into a recipient.

You’d need a hospital and support staff.

The entire business of urban legends has a number of sites on the internet.

In India, the desperately poor sell their organs to the rich.

I’ve heard rumors that in China condemned prisoners are forced to give up body parts after death. Some organs are harvested prematurely while the “donors” are still alive. I believe this is all orchestrated by corrupt politicians.

I can’t substantiate any of this.

Everything I know about politicians is what I’ve seen in this province.

The latest twist on the aviator adulterer legend comes from a media friend of mine.

Rumor has it that our premier, Ralph Klein, owns a small Alberta airline. This airline has a contract to supply beer in bulk to many local pubs.

Last Thursday, the pilot who was supposed to make a pick-up in Montreal “phoned in sick.”

Ever-the-savior, Premier Klein told his wife that it was his responsibility to fly the plane and away he sailed into the wild blue yonder.

Well, you know the rest — Klein waking up in a Montreal hotel without his kidney, then being airlifted back to Alberta for a successful emergency organ transplant.

It couldn’t happen.

Sure, Klein is interested — some say consumed — with beer, and maybe he’s got something going with a Quebec gal …

BUT there’s NO way the rest of the story could be true.

The fact is, no one can get medical attention in Alberta.

Thanks to Premier Ralph Klein, the waiting list is now 16 weeks just to get an eye appointment.

A kidney transplant?

Forget it — at Alberta hospitals you can’t even get a kidney basin, let alone a kidney.

Organ transplants are being postponed into the next millennium.

I think it’s a terrible disservice to Ralph Klein that my media colleague would consider running such a story about him.

Ralph Klein may be a legend in his own time, but only an urban one.