Well, yesterday in the New Yorker (I think I need to explain why I read the New Yorker. For my entire life the New Yorker has always seemed like an elite magazine. Something that smart people read so they could talk about smart things. Then as I got older and more cynical I believed the New Yorker was a pompous magazine that people carried around and read so they seemed smart. Now I’m just confused so I buy it for the cartoons and let it sit around the apartment so visiting dignitaries think I'm way smarter than I actually am.) there was a piece that put my entire life in perspective.
Here is a slightly dramatic excerpt about how things even out:
“Probably the perfect example of things evening out happened to me just last month. I was walking to the post office to mail a death threat. It was a beautiful day. I was happily singing away in my super-loud singing voice. I didn’t step on any chewing gum, like I usually do, and when I threw my gum down it didn’t stick to my fingertips. As I rounded the corner, there was a bum begging for change. I was feeling pretty good, so I gave him a five-dollar bill. At first I tried to make him do a little dance for the five dollars, but he wouldn’t do it, so I gave him the five dollars anyway.
Not long after that, I was reading the paper, and there was a picture of the bum. He had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry! He had a little bigger nose and straighter teeth, but I’m pretty sure it was him. So, my five dollars had made him change his ways and become a chemistry guy.
A few days later, I was walking by the corner again, and there was the bum, back begging. So, things had evened out. He had gotten the Nobel Prize, but now he was a bum again. I asked him for the five dollars back, but he started saying weird stuff that I guess was chemistry formulas or something.
I told my friend Don the story, but he said it wasn’t an example of things evening out so much as just a stupid story. That’s interesting, Don, because you saying that evens out what I said to your mother that time.”
The piece was written by Jack Handey who I always believed was a fictional character on SNL. I’ve since learned he is actually a 60 year-old man from El Paso, Texas who worked for a variety of comedic ventures. I was going to post a clip from SNL but I can’t find one that works but instead I found this crazy box that you can post…. But I have no idea what it’s going to say so I don’t take any responsibility for anything that may offend (or I take all the responsibility and you can fight OFLJ about it… he will handle all blog related violence… I call him my little Moe Greene. (I gave you the link cause most people never know what I'm talking about.)
DeepThoughtsByJackHandey.com |
Read the whole New Yorker piece here
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