Today's featured daily humor:
A Day Off I posted this in r/jokes and no one read it. Their loss. Let's see if anyone here likes it. It isn't a joke as much as an experience I had last week, but it teaches a valuable lesson that I think everyone here can benefit from. I was growing increasingly tired of my job and the amount of stress my boss was forcing me to endure, under implied threat of termination. I worked 15 days straight before he "graciously" gave me a day off. I had recently taken an interest in honey farming, thinking that I could start my own small business to avoid being stuck in this "work until I die" mindset that I'd found myself in, so I decided to go to Barnes and Noble to see if they had any books on honey bee care and upkeep. They didn't have anything useful available, so I thought, "what the heck, I might as well have a few drinks tonight then." I was on a side of town that I wasn't familiar with, so I started scanning around looking for a liquor store. A few miles down the road, I saw a little place in a shopping strip called Wong's Liquor. I went in and noticed a small, older Asian man behind the counter staring out of the front window with an instinctual lifelessness. I gave the universal "what's up?" head nod, but he never acknowledged me or even looked away from the window. I picked up a bottle of Jack from the shelf, walked up to the counter, and placed it down, harder than I normally would have, to get his attention. Nothing. He just kept staring out of the front window. I waited for a few seconds, to give him time to respond, but still nothing. I proceeded to clear my throat and ask how it's going. After a brief pause, he slowly turned to me and said, "not very good." I wasn't expecting an honest answer, as most people nowadays just give an auto response like, "fine, and you?" Or "pretty good, will this be all?" He caught me off guard, so without even thinking about it, I blurted out, "is something wrong?" I glanced at his well worn name tag to see the name Albert. I was left to assume that he was the owner of the liquor store. "My wife and I have been married since highschool. 24 years now. We were married before we ever left Hong Kong. We've been through so many joys and hardships over the course our lives together, but nothing could ever come between us. We had been trying to conceive for many years, and, after several heartbreaking failed pregnancies, she finally gave birth last week." He turned and gazed back out of the window in silence. Not knowing what else to say, I congratulated him. He stood there for a few more moments and turned back to me. "I was so caught up in the magic of the moment that I could pay attention to little else. Our lifelong dream of raising a son was finally coming true right in front of our eyes. After our doctor, that we'd known for almost our entire lives, had delivered our son, he handed him to my wife, and asked me out into the hallway to speak privately." His eyes started filling up. I feel like a heartless monster saying this, but I just wanted my booze. I didn't want to hear this guy's literal life story. "How's it going?" is a rhetorical question. No one ever wants a genuine answer. It's just a robotic nicety that our egocentric society uses to feign interest in the lives of strangers. He continued, The doctor said, "there's no easy way to tell you this Albert, so I'm just going to come out and say it. Two Wongs don't make a white."