Misc Jokes

Are You a Problem Thinker?

Are YOU a problem thinker?

It started out innocently enough. I began to
think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably
though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than
just a social thinker. I began to think alone - "to relax," I
told myself -but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more
and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the
time.

I began to think on the job. I knew that
thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop
myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read
Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and
confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"

Things weren't going so great at home either. One evening I
had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of
life.

She spent that night at her mother's.

I soon had a reputation as a heavy thinker.

One day the boss called me in. He said, "Skippy, I like you,
and it hurts me to say this, but your
thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop
thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This
gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with
the boss. "Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."

"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I
want a divorce!"

"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."

"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as
much as a college professor, and college professors don't
make any money, so if you keep on thinking we won't have any
money!"

"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently, and she
began to cry. I'd had enough. "I'm going to the library," I
snarled as I stomped out the door. I headed for the library,
in the mood for some Nietzsche, with NPR on the radio. I
roared into the parking lot and ran up to the big glass doors
. . . they didn't open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was
looking out for me that night. As I sank to the ground
clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a
poster caught my eye. "Friend,
is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. You probably
recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's
Anonymous poster. Which is why I am what I am today: a
recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting. At each
meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was
"Porky's." Then we share experiences about how
we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.
Life just seemed . . . easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped
thinking.