One day a man goes to visit his lawyer friend for advice.

“I’m in real trouble” he says. “My neighbors across the road are going on vacation for a month; and instead of boarding their dogs they are going to keep them locked up and a woman is coming to feed them, if she doesn’t forget. Meanwhile they’ll be lonely and bark all day and howl all night, and I won’t be able to sleep. I’ll either have to call the SPCA to haul them away or I’ll go berserk and go over there and shoot them and then when my neighbors return, they’ll go berserk and come over and shoot me.

Patting a delicate yawn the lawyer says: “Let me tell you a story, and don’t stop me if you’ve heard it because it will do you good to hear it again.”

“A fellow was speeding down a country road late at night and BANG! He blows out a tire. When he gets out and looks in the trunk of his car he discovers that he has no jack.

“Thinking to himself he says, ‘Well, I’ll just walk to the nearest farmhouse and borrow a jack.’ Looking down the road he sees a light in the distance and says, ‘I’m in luck; the farmer’s still up. I’ll just go down and knock on the door and say I’m in trouble; would you please lend me a jack? And he’ll say, why sure, neighbor, help yourself, but bring it back.’

“As he walks on a little farther the light goes out and he says to himself, ‘Great, now he’s gone to bed, and he’ll be annoyed because I’m bothering him so he’ll probably want some money for his jack. And I’ll say, all right, it isn’t very neighborly but I’ll give you a dollar. ‘

“And he’ll say, do you think you can get me out of bed in the middle of the night and then offer me a dollar? Give me five dollars or get yourself a jack somewhere else.’

“By the time he gets to the farmhouse the fellow had worked himself into a lather. He turns into the gate muttering. ‘Five dollars! All right, I’ll give you five dollars. But not a cent more! A poor soul has an accident and all he needs is a jack. You probably won’t let me have one no matter what I give you. That’s the kind of guy you are.’

“He soon finds himself at front the door pounding angrily. The farmer sticks his head out the window above the door and hollers down, ‘Who’s there? What do you want?’ The fellow stops pounding on the door and yells up, ‘You and your stupid jack!’”

When the man stops laughing, he starts thinking, and asks, “Is that what I’ve been doing?” “Yup,” says the attorney, “and you’d be surprised how many people immediately go to a lawyer for advice, and instead of calmly stating the facts, they start building up a big imaginary fight; what he’ll say to his partner, what she’ll say to her husband, or how they’ll tell the Old Man off about his will. So when they come to me I simply tell them the story about the jack and pretty soon they cool off.

“The next time I hear from them, one tells me that the partner was glad to meet him halfway; the gal says she can’t understand it, her husband was so reasonable she thought she must have gotten somebody else on the phone; the relatives found out the Old Man had already been asking a lawyer how he could give everything to them before he died, to save them inheritance tax.”

The man thinks about it for a moment and says, “How true! Most of us go through life bumping into obstacles we could easily bypass; spoiling for a fight and lashing out in blind rages at fancied wrongs and imaginary foes.”

“And we don’t even realize what we are doing until someone startles us one day with a vivid word like a lightning flash on a dark night.”

Not long after his discussion, he is driving home from the city. He’s late for dinner and hadn’t phoned his wife. As he crawls along in a long line of cars, he becomes more and more frustrated and angry. “I’ll tell her I was caught in the heavy weekend traffic”, he thinks and then he imagines that she’ll say, “Why didn’t you phone me before you left town?”

“Planning his defense he says to himself, ‘What difference does it make anyway, I’m here!’ He then considers her response, ‘Yes, and I’m here, too, and I’ve been here all day waiting to hear from you!’ Ready with his response he thinks, ‘I suppose I haven’t anything else to do but call you up every hour on the hour and make like a lovebird!’ Knowing that she’ll reply, ‘You mean like a wolf, but you certainly wouldn’t be calling me!’

By this time he’s turning into his driveway he has worked himself up into another lather. Just as he jumps out of the car and slams the door, his wife throws open the window upstairs.

“All right!” he shouts up to her, “Say it!”

“I will,” she softly coos, “Wanna borrow a jack?”

Author Unknown