By RICHARD JOHNSON
Since it is Thanksgiving weekend, I thought that a little light refreshment — rather than the usual heavy fare — would be an appropriate way to observe the holiday.
At our house, first we stuff the bird, then the bird stuffs us. This is a weekend for unbuckled belts, random snacking and an all-you-can-watch football buffet. If your family is anything like ours, you’ve already morphed from stuffed turkey to turkey sandwiches, and now you’re down to turkey soup. In our house, by now the men are tired of turkey in all forms and are ready for some real man food ... homemade meatloaf!
People send me all kinds of mass e-mails; every now and then, I get something worth keeping. For your holiday enjoyment, here are two I like:
The difference between going to work and going to prison
• At prison, you spend the majority of your time in a 10-by-10 foot cell.
• At work, you spend the majority of your time in a 6-by-6 foot cubicle.
• At prison, you get three fully paid-for meals a day.
• At work, you get one meal that you pay for yourself.
• At prison, you’re given time off for good behavior.
• At work, you’re given more work for good behavior.
• At prison, a guard unlocks the doors for you.
• At work, you carry a security card and unlock the doors yourself.
• At prison, you can watch television and play games.
• At work, you get fired if you watch television or play games.
• At prison, you get your own toilet.
• At work, you share the toilet with people who pee on the seat.
• At prison, they allow your family and friends to visit.
• At work, you aren’t supposed to even speak to your family.
• At prison, all your living expenses are paid for by the taxpayers, with no work required.
• At work, you get to pay all your expenses to go to work, and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.
• At prison, you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
• At work, you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.
• At prison, you must deal with sadistic wardens.
• At work, they are called managers.
Now get back to work; you’re not being paid to check personal e-mails.
•••
Here’s another one for you computer haters:
At a recent computer conference, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If General Motors had kept up with technology as the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles per gallon.”
In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft’s, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason, you would simply accept this.
4. Once in a while, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart — in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive. But it would only run on 5 percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “This car has performed an illegal operation” warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.
8. Sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you back in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You’d have to press the “start” button to turn the engine off.
Please share this with your friends who love, but sometimes hate, their computers.
I hope that you and yours have had a blessed holiday, with much to be thankful for.
Richard Johnson is a recovering turkeyaholic; this is a dangerous time of year for him. Other than that, he’s the executive director of Christian Formation Ministries in New Albany. If you’d like, you may call or e-mail him at richard@christian-formation.org, or 812-945-0886.
