Want to Borrow a Jack?
Want to Borrow a Jack? One day, I went to a lawyer friend for advice.
"I'm in real trouble," I said. "My neighbors across the road are
going on vacation for a month and instead of boarding their dogs,
they're going to keep them locked up and a woman is coming to feed
them, if she doesn't forget. Meanwhile, they'll be lonely and bark
all day and howl all night, and I won't be able to sleep. I'll
either have to call the SPCA to haul them away or I'll go berserk
and go over there and shoot them and then when my neighbors return,
they'll go berserk and come over and shoot me.
My lawyer patted back a delicate yawn. "Let me tell you a story," he
said. "And don't stop me if you've heard it, because it will do you
good to hear it again."
"A fellow was speeding down a country road late at night and bang
went a tire. He got out and looked, but he had no jack.
"Then he said to himself, 'Well, I'll just walk to the nearest
farmhouse and borrow a jack.' He saw a light in the distance and
said, 'Well, I'm in luck. The farmer's up. I'll just knock on the
door and say I'm in trouble, would you please lend me a jack? And
he'll say, why sure, neighbor, help yourself, but bring it back.'"
"He walked on a little farther and the light went out, so he said to
himself, 'Now, he's gone to bed, and he'll be annoyed because I'm
bothering him, so he'll probably want some money for his jack. And
I'll say, okay, it isn't very neighborly, but I'll give you a
quarter. And he'll say, do you think you can get me out of bed in
the middle of the night and then offer me a quarter? Give me a
dollar or get yourself a jack somewhere else.'"
"By the time he got to the farmhouse, the fellow had worked himself
into a lather. He turned into the gate and muttered. 'A dollar!
Okay, I'll give you a dollar, but not a cent more! A poor devil has
an accident and all he needs is a jack. You probably won't let me
have one, no matter what I give you. That's the kind of guy you
are.'"
"Which brought him to the door and he knocked angrily, loudly. The
farmer stuck his head out the window above the door and hollered
down, 'Who's there? What do you want?'
The fellow stopped pounding on the door and yelled up, 'You and your
stupid jack! You know what you can do with it!'"
When I stopped laughing, I started thinking, and I said, "Is that
what I've been doing?"
"Right," he said. "And you'd be surprised how many people come to a
lawyer for advice, and instead of calmly stating the facts, start
building up a big imaginary fight. What he'll say to his partner,
what she'll say to her husband, or how they'll tell the Old Man off
about his will. So, I tell them the story about the jack and they
cool off."
"The next time I hear from them, one tells me that the partner was
glad to meet him halfway; the gal says she can't understand it, but
her husband was so reasonable, she thought she must have gotten
somebody else on the phone; the relatives found out the Old Man had
already been asking a lawyer how he could give everything to them
before he died, to save them inheritance tax."
I thought, "How true! Most of us go through life bumping into
obstacles we could easily bypass, spoiling for a fight and lashing
out in blind rages at fancied wrongs and imaginary foes."
"And we don't even realize what we are doing until someone startles
us one day with a vivid word, like a lightning flash on a dark
night."
Well, the other night, I was driving home from the city. I was late
for dinner and I hadn't phoned my wife. As I crawled along in a line
of cars, I became more and more frustrated and angry. I'll tell her
I was caught in the heavy weekend traffic and she'll say, "Why
didn't you phone me before you left town?"
Then I'll say, "What difference does it make anyway, I'm here!"
And she'll say, "Yes, and I'm here, too, and I've been here all day
waiting to hear from you!"
And I'll say, "I suppose I haven't anything else to do but call you
up every hour on the hour and make like a lovebird!"
And she'll say, "You mean like a wolf, but you wouldn't be calling
me!"
By this time, I am turning into the drive and I am plenty steamed
up. As I jumped out and slammed the car door, my wife flung open the
window upstairs. "Okay!" I shouted up to her. "Say it!"
"I will," she cooed softly. "Want to borrow a jack?"
[ Author Unknown -- from Patricia, via 'Buffalos Chips' (buffalos-g-jokes.yahoogroups.com) ]
Inspirational Humor
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