Monday, January 22, 2018

Some perspective

A man is sitting at the bar, deep in drink. He hears something that so disturbs him he turns around to see who said it. He sees two astrophysicists from a nearby university. Staggering to their booth he says, "What were you guys just talking about?"

One of the physicists replies, "We were just discussing stellar evolution. My colleague believes that within 5 billion years, the sun will run out of fuel and become a red giant. The Earth and everything on it would be incinerated, of course."

The drunk stands down, more at ease now. "God, that's a relief," he says, "I thought you said 5 million."

(I didn't make up that joke. In some form it might actually be older than me. I gave it a little touch-up to make it more cinematic, though.)

2 comments:

susan said...

That's a very good version. As my dad used to say, 'There's no good in worrying about things you can do nothing about'.

You've probably heard this one but it's a favorite of mine so I'll tell it anyway:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gun shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

Ben said...

That was a very sage statement from Grandad. A good way to approach life.

That one did make me laugh. Maybe the issue at the root was that the emergency operator made it sound too much like a recipe.