whatareyouthinking

Tripp’s wife heard of a breakthrough, life-changing diet.  She consulted the dietician, saying, “Please make me slimmer!  I can see how I’ve been overweight for so long.”  So the dietician agreed to work with her.  Things went well for a while, and then she began to overeat once again.  Tripp’s wife thought that if she followed the diet long enough, and exact enough, she would have a breakthrough and wake up slimmer.  It didn’t happen that way, so she fell off the diet.

The dietician assured her that he was still willing to work with her and help her achieve their goal.  Yet, Tripp’s wife said to herself, “Since I am already off this diet, I will indulge in all sorts of food.  But one day I shall return to the diet, follow it rigidly, get my breakthrough—and wake up slimmer!  Meanwhile, I must find what it is that is making me fat.”

A colorblind father would often tell his housebound son that green was the color of the sunset.  Years passed, and the boy did not consider any other possibilities. 

Gradually, the boy’s health improved to the point where he could go outside and see the sunset himself.  As he watched the event for the very first time, he stood in awe of the landscape’s beauty as the sun seemingly sank below the earth’s surface.  However, throughout the course of the sunset, the boy couldn’t help but notice the sun and the sky’s deep red appearance.  This did not coincide with the green sunset his father had frequently spoke of. 

For a time the boy entertained the notion that the sunset may indeed be red (contrary to the description he held for many years).  Such pondering yielded him no minor distress and unearthed a myriad of other questions.  Was his dad just lying to him the entire time?  Was his father unable to see the sun as it truly was?  Was the boy’s own vision of the sun distorted?  Did the boy and his dad have valid reasons for seeing the sunset so differently? 

One day the boy finally conceded.  He decided that the sunset was green after all (though thoughts of red suns and skylines still intrigued him on occasion).  Nevertheless, even if red was the accurate description, green was still the more comfortable view.   

A man spent several years of his life saving to buy a monkey.  After buying the monkey and testing it out, he decided that what he really wanted was a bear.  He found that he could trade in the monkey, so it wouldn’t take him quite as long to get the bear as it did [to get] the monkey.  A few years later, he finally had enough to buy the bear.  Later, he couldn’t find a place for the monkey or the bear and couldn’t use them, so he exchanged them and settled for a dog.  Now he’s thinking that perhaps some day in the future he may even get a cat, but the dog is good enough for right now. 

Tripp and his friend went to the movies.  Once the film was over and the credits began to roll, Tripp’s friend asked him, “So…what did you think [of the movie].”
Tripp said, “Oh, I’m waiting to read the reviews on it.  Then I will let you know what I think.”

There once was an amphibian fed up with being surrounded by water and he decided to leave his wet past behind to live on dry land. Of course, this too wearied him until he decided that it was a mistake to have left the water. Yet after sometime, he remembered why he had left the water to begin with and once again landed himself on dry land.

It came to pass that his entire life was spent hopping from wetlands to dry lands and back again while never understanding the value of having both.

There were some young men who grew up in poor families on old farms in a small town.  As a result, their access to fashion trends was extremely limited.  For the most part, the people in that old town had only known overalls.

One day while the young men were in town considering new pairs of overalls for themsleves, they happened upon a traveling peddler that introduced them to designer clothing.  The myriad shapes and colors that these new clothes had to offer overwhelmed them as they pondered what they had been missing all their lives.  So they took a large portion of the money they had allotted for such things and purchased the garments of the colors that appealed to them most.  They proudly displayed their new attire everywhere they went.  Some of the other townspeople saw the beauty of these new outfits themselves and decided to follow suit.

They began to exclaim how wonderful it would be if everyone in the town would wear colors just as they did!  At first they thought of how drab the overall clad people’s lives seemed and desired to introduce them to a brighter way of life.  However, they gradually began to look down upon the overall townspeople and criticized them for their choice of attire.  Some of the residents resented them and refused to ditch their overalls so to not be associated with such mockers.  Eventually, those who preferred the red clothes began to consider their own choice of colors best.  It also happened with those who chose the yellow clothes, the green clothes, the blue clothes, and the same with all the others.
 
Now the children of those that preferred red associate mainly with others that prefer red, the yellow with the yellow, the green with the green, the blue with the blue, and the same with the others.  The color groups often think of themselves as the true colors while maintaining a rather dim view of the others.  They are known to put each other in a bad light, and allign only when discussing how the overall-clad citizens should start wearing color. 

And in despite of it all, more color groups continue to be added to this day.

Tripp was always told that he should never talk to strangers.  One day, Tripp went for a walk and became lost and didn’t know how to get home.  He saw many people, many of which offered help, but Tripp would not allow himself to talk to strangers.  He never made it home.
 
Another neighborhood boy was also told by his parents to never talk to strangers.  However, after learning of Tripp’s fate, he said, “I will talk to strangers everywhere I go!  Look what happened to Tripp after following that silly advice!”  So he went out of his way to converse with strangers everywhere he went.  Eventually, one lead him away, and he too never made it home.

Tripp was so proud of the four pounds that he lost, the report was spread across town just moments after he stepped off of the scale.   One individual inquired as to what he had attributed his success.  “Diet Soda”, he replied.  “I know a lot of people don’t think it works, but it really does!  You just have to drink enough of it.” 
 
Tripp’s wife figured that it must had been the new bathroom scale.

In a medical journal, Tripp had read about the health benefits of regularly having a glass of wine with dinner.  That same night, Tripp consumed all of the wine that he could and landed himself in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning.  Once he recovered, he sued the medical journal.

A woman began to display some symptoms of mental illness, so her family urged her to see a psychiatrist. Upon her first visit, the therapist provided a diagnosis and prescribed her a pill to help alleviate some of her problems. They had a follow-up visit two weeks later and the doctor inquired about the effectiveness of the medication. She said, “This pill hasn’t done anything for me at all. Fortunately, people at my job and family have been much nicer to me lately so I won’t be needing it anymore.”