One day I went to a lawyer friend for advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in real trouble\u201d I said. \u201cMy neighbors across the road are going on vacation for a month; and instead of boarding their dogs they are going to keep them locked up and a woman is coming to feed them, if she doesn\u2019t forget. Meanwhile they\u2019ll be lonely and bark all day and howl all night, and I won\u2019t be able to sleep. I\u2019ll either have to call the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) to haul them away or I\u2019ll go berserk and go over there and shoot them and then when my neighbors return, they\u2019ll go berserk and come over and shoot me.\u201d<\/p>\n
My lawyer patted back a delicate yawn. \u201cLet me tell you a story,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd don\u2019t stop me if you\u2019ve heard it because it will do you good to hear it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA 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.<\/p>\n
Then he said to himself. \u201cWell, I will just walk to the nearest farmhouse and borrow a jack.\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw a light in the distance and said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m in luck; the farmer\u2019s up. I will just knock on the door and say I\u2019m in trouble, would you please lend me a jack? And he will say, why sure, neighbor, help yourself, but bring it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
He walked on a little farther and the light went out so he said to himself, \u201cNow he is gone to bed, and he will be annoyed because I\u2019m bothering him so he will probably want some money for his jack. And I will say, all right, it isn\u2019t very neighborly but I will give you a quarter. And he will 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time he got to the farmhouse, the fellow had worked himself into agitation. He turned into the gate and muttered. \u201cA dollar! All right, I will 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\u2019t let me have one no matter what I give you. That\u2019s the kind of guy you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those bad thoughts and imaginations brought him to the door and he knocked angrily, loudly. The farmer stuck his head out the window above the door and hollered down, \u201cWho\u2019s there? What do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n
The fellow stopped pounding on the door and yelled up, \u201cYou and your stupid jack! You know what you can do with it!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
When I stopped laughing, I started thinking, and I said, \u201cIs that what I\u2019ve been doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight,\u201d he said, \u201cand you\u2019d 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\u2019ll say to his partner, what she\u2019ll say to her husband, or how they\u2019ll tell the Old Man off about his will. So I tell them the story about the jack and they cool off.<\/p>\n
I thought, \u201cHow 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\u2019t even realize what we are doing until someone startles us one day with a vivid word like a lightning flash on a dark night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, the other night I was driving home from the city. I was late for dinner and I hadn\u2019t phoned my wife. As I crawled along in a line of cars, I became more and more frustrated and angry. I\u2019ll tell her I was caught in the heavy weekend traffic and she\u2019ll say, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you phone me before you left town?\u201d<\/p>\n
Then I\u2019ll say, \u201cWhat difference does it make anyway, I\u2019m here!\u201d And she\u2019ll say, \u201cYes, and I\u2019m here, too, and I\u2019ve been here all day waiting to hear from you!\u201d And I\u2019ll say, \u201cI suppose I haven\u2019t anything else to do but call you up every hour on the hour and make like a lovebird!\u201d And she\u2019ll say, \u201cYou mean like a wolf, but you wouldn\u2019t be calling me!\u201d<\/p>\n
By this time I am turning into the drive and I am plenty steamed up.<\/p>\n
As I jumped out and slammed the car door, my wife flung open the window upstairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right!\u201d I shouted up to her, \u201cSay it!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will,\u201d she cooed softly. \u201cWanna borrow a jack?\u201d<\/p>\n
-Author Unkown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One day I went to a lawyer friend for advice. \u201cI\u2019m in real trouble\u201d I said. \u201cMy neighbors across the road are going on vacation for a month; and instead of boarding their dogs they are going to keep them locked up and a woman is coming to feed them, if she doesn\u2019t forget. Meanwhile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-realities","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emcortes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}