Heavy 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 lunch time 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 college professors, 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 a PBS station 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.

Blonde Confusion

Q: How do you confuse a blonde?
A: Tell her to count the stairs on a escalator.

News Headlines

• Curators at India's Baroda Museum reported irreparable damage to a priceless 3,000-year-old mummy, done by an overzealous cleaning person who apparently opened the mummy's case and vacuumed the body. The vacuum removed ancient dust, peeled toe paint, sucked off part of the nose, and loosened bandages. 
• An anti-logging protester from radical Earth First! was killed near Fortuna, CA, when one of the trees fell on him. 
• In an unconfirmed report, a spokesperson for the Italian Gattinoni fashion house announced Monica Lewinsky has agreed to model a blue two-piece suit there during an October 'Roma Outsize' fashion show in Milan. She'll supposedly get $470,000, half of which will go to charity... Gattinoni recently unveiled a flesh-colored skin-tight 'condom dress' decorated with Viagra pills.
• Saturday in Beaumont, Texas a 20-minute halftime brawl erupted between the Southern University and Prairie View A&M marching bands as the formations passed each other. Three people were taken to the hospital, four $5,000 tubas were bent, and one saxophone plus several pieces of uniform were reported missing.
• Avon is finally eschewing its all-door-to-door selling strategy and starting retail discount outlets.
• October's National Geographic will be the magazine's first with a scent strip. It's a scientific recreation of Cleopatra's perfume.