The Incurable

There was once an alternative physician who claimed that he could cure anyone of anything. The very spotty, the very nervous, the very rich – all left his consulting room relieved of whatever it was that had taken them in there. Until one day, when the physician received a most unusual visitor.

His new patient, who claimed to be incurable, submitted himself to a thorough examination, but the physician could find nothing wrong with the man.

"What ails thee?" the physician eventually asked.

"Oh cure, oh cure me please, I beg you," begged the patient. "For I am an incurable optimist."

The physician was taken aback – never before had he been faced with a case of incurable optimism.

The optimist explained, at great length, how he had never been able to see the darker side of anything, and how throughout his long and difficult life he had been dogged by a confident disposition and an inexhaustible supply of cheer. These had brought nothing but trouble.

He would breeze from town to town, from job to job to no job – and feel nothing but happiness and hope. He had made tragically optimistic decisions, in business and love, blind to the consequences. And when the consequences arrived – in the forms of writs for bankruptcy, writs for divorce, prison sentences or hangovers – the incurable optimist would simply shrug and say:

"It's only money . . . "

"There's plenty more fish in the sea . . . "

"A change is as good as a rest . . . "

"We've been here before . . . "

And, on one occasion:

"You don't put herrings in a turkey pie," – which means nothing.

"Please help me," moaned the pitiful optimist. "I don't mind the diverse lifestyle that much, but people keep spitting at me."

"Do they now?" spat the physician – who rose to any challenge – "Your troubles are over, for I can cure you."

"Oh I knew you could help," said the optimist.

The physician's initial approach was to force the man into placing his life's savings on a Peruvian llama that was running in the Kentucky Derby, due to an administrative error.

"We can but hope," said the optimist, optimistically.

The llama romped home in first place – it's unusual appearance had distracted the other runners. The pay out ran into several thousands.

"Well, I'm quite pleased, but it's not really a cure, is it?" commented the optimist.

The physician was so enraged by this remark, and so inspired by the sight of the prize money, that he persuaded the optimist to accompany him to a tall building in a big city – for intensive therapy.

The physician pushed the man from the very top. "Still feeling optimistic are you?" he shouted after his patient – who was then returned to the summit by a freak wind, sustaining no injury whatsoever, but landing heavily upon the physician.

"There there," said the optimist, "you'll live."

And he did live; and it was whilst recuperating from this incident, in a plaster cast, that the physician hit upon a devilish scheme guaranteed to break the spirit of the optimist.

He prescribed a high dosage of depressants, to be taken hourly – with whisky.

His patient cooperated, and shortly afterwards the physician was shocked and saddened to hear that the man had, tragically, become a successful country and western artiste.

"One day I know, things will get better . . . " he sang.

Reluctantly, the physician came to realise that he could offer no further hope to the optimist – but had unwittingly cured himself of exactly the same condition.

Moral: You don't put herrings in a turkey pie.