Not all goats are great

Early morning.

Humming generators, the sounds of cars speeding by, distant sirens echoing through the streets.

It’s not ever silent, not really.

Here’s a recipe for a good morning:

Step 1 – Start the previous day with hope and happiness.

Step 2 – Then watch it slowly drain as the construction project across the street begins to jackhammer.

Step 3 – Make sure the jackhammer(s) are pneumatic and larger than a person in size. Those are the extra loud ones. The feel-it-in-your-teeth ones. The never-get-tired-and-hammer-for-8-straight-hours ones.

Step 4 – Stick your head under a pillow and pretend you’re in a happy place. This won’t work, but by hour six or seven, you’ll try anything.

Step 5 – Wake up the next morning, and realize that the jackhammering has stopped. All you hear is the distant city hum. This, this is happiness. You’ve never enjoyed the silence so much in your life.

Even if it’s not silent, not really.

---

This story might be a figment of my imagination, but I think that my dad told it to me growing up.

A poor man goes to his rabbi.

“Rabbi, I don’t know what to do. I have no money, I live in a tiny shack with my wife and four children. We have no space, we’re on top of each-other. It’s a miserable existence.”

The rabbi says nothing. He thinks.

As the man awkwardly stands there, the rabbi finally breaks the silence:

“What you need is a goat.”

Now the man is silent. His mind tries to fit this goat into his life like a misshaped puzzle piece.

Confusion wins out and man breaks the silence:

“A goat?”

Rabbi smiles. “Yes my boy. A goat.”

“The day you get this goat,” continues the rabbi, “everything about your life will get worse. The apartment will become more crowded. Another mouth to feed will make you poorer. The smell in your home will become unbearable.

“But,” the rabbi pauses, “Goats don’t live very long, and one day the goat will die.”

“And it will be the happiest day of your life. The return to the good old days.”