When Joe’s wife ran away with his car, his money, and his best friend, he became so depressed that his doctor finally sent him to see a psychiatrist. Joe sat heavily in the chair, looking exhausted and defeated, and told the psychiatrist everything that had happened. Finally, with a long sigh, he said, “Life isn’t worth living. I think I’m gonna top myself.”
“Don’t be stupid, Joe,” said the psychiatrist. “My wife ran off and left me too, yet I’m happy.”
Joe stared at him in disbelief. “How?” he asked.
“Easy,” replied the quack. “I threw myself into my work. I totally submerged myself in my job and soon forgot her. By the way, Joe, what work do you do?”
Joe slowly looked up at him and replied, “I clean out septic tanks.”
The psychiatrist stared at Joe for a moment, suddenly wondering if his own advice had been quite as helpful as he intended.
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In order to pay his medical school tuition, Thomas Merrick was working two jobs over the summer. He was determined to save every dollar he could, even if it meant exhausting himself from morning until midnight.
By day, he worked at LeClaire’s Market—a butcher shop. He wore a stiff white coat splattered with crimson and trimmed fat, spending hours cutting meat, cleaning counters, and hauling heavy boxes into the freezer. By night, he transformed.
Down at St. Ambrose Hospital, he traded cleavers for stretchers. As an orderly on the graveyard shift, his white coat was now clean and crisp, worn over hospital scrubs. He was quiet, polite, and professional, and despite the strange contrast between his two jobs, Thomas had become accustomed to living two completely different lives.
One night, long past midnight, Thomas was called to prepare a patient for surgery. Room 216. Elderly woman.
Appendectomy. He arrived with his usual calm, smiled softly, gently eased the gurney beside her bed, and began to help the nurses ready her for the trip down to the OR. She was pale.
Small. Her eyes fluttered open, cloudy but alert. As Thomas leaned in to adjust the straps, the room froze.
Her eyes locked onto him—wide, horrified. Her lips trembled. Then, as if struck by lightning, she bolted upright and screamed with the terror of a woman who believed her last hour had come:
“God save me!
It’s the butcher!”
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Lisa and Judy were doing some carpenter work on a Habitat for Humanity house. Lisa was nailing down house siding, reaching into her nail pouch, pulling out a nail, and either tossing it over her shoulder or hammering it into place. Judy watched her for several minutes, growing more and more confused.
Finally, figuring this was worth looking into, Judy asked, “Why are you throwing those nails away?”
Lisa stopped hammering and held up one of the nails as though she had just discovered a serious manufacturing defect. “When I pull a nail out of my pouch, about half of them have the head on the wrong end, so I throw them away.”
Judy stared at her in disbelief. For a moment, she seemed unable to decide whether Lisa was joking or genuinely serious.
Then she became completely upset and yelled, “You moron!
Those nails aren’t defective! They’re for the other side of the house!”
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A man was telling his co-worker one day that the company was transferring him to Chicago. He explained that he was seriously considering quitting before he had to move there.
When asked why, he replied that he was just too afraid of all the crime, even though he would be passing up a big salary increase and greater benefits. His co-worker said he should reconsider. Chicago was a magnificent city, with world-class museums, loaded with great history, famous sites, good public transportation, and plenty of things to do.
Then he said, “Why, I myself worked in Chicago for almost ten years, and in all that time I never ever had a problem with crime while I was working.”
The first man looked relieved. “Really? Then maybe it isn’t as dangerous as I thought. What did you do there?”
The other man casually replied, “I was tail-gunner on a bread truck.”
The first man stared at him in silence, suddenly realizing that there was a very good reason his co-worker had never personally experienced any crime while working in Chicago.
