The Super Octopus

     An Octopus was hard at work supervising the mollusks. On this particular day, he had one arm polishing the oyster’s pearl, another arm burrowing the shrimp’s burrows, another arm taking calls for the reclusive hermit crab, one arm shaving for the razor clam, one arm dangling the lobster while another arm was whipping the same lobster for not sweeping the floor and one arm holding the student squid upside down to dispense ink on a book report.

      Suddenly, not too far away, a Fire Squid, the species that could flash light in different colors, was struggling to replace some bulbs that had blown out. The Octopus spotted this and responded, “Oh great! Like I need another job!”

     The Octopus had no idea how he could take on more work; his arms were already full. But no sooner had he grumbled, “Damn, if I only had another arm,” when it hit him, “Of course! I’ll get another arm!” He told his doctor to perform an operation and, as fortune would have it, the transplant was a success. “Now bring me that Fire Squid,” ordered the Octopus.

     Unfortunately, the Octopus found it extremely difficult to coordinate all these arms. His hand-eye-coordination seemed to be out of whack.

     He dropped the Oyster’s pearl, dropped the phone, dropped the razor, dropped the lobster, slapped his own wife with the arm that was whipping the lobster, and he spilled all the ink. The Octopus did, however, manage to get the Fire Squid’s lights working, but not without a nasty shock – a shock that knee-jerked the arm out of the shrimp’s burrow and, like a wild hose, gave his wife yet another slap. Chaos ensued throughout the sea. And no one could help, because no one knew what to do since the Octopus was supposed to do it all.

     From a ripple, came a wave of misfortune. His wife, fed up with being slapped around, left him. Then, despite working harder and faster than ever, concentrating ever more intensely on juggling his various tasks, the Octopus got his arms entangled and stressed out so badly that he suffered an aneurysm. Unable to work, the Octopus lost his old job; and though he eventually recovered from the aneurysm, his reputation as someone who could neither motivate nor work well with others prevented him from finding a new job.

     Destitute and alone, he had no choice but to squat in front of the local fish store and beg for a living. So with one arm blowing the trumpet, another arm hitting the bass drum, another arm shaking the tambourine, two arms on the rhythm guitar, two arms on the upright bass, and – because he now had nine arms – one arm holding out the hat to the passersby, he was a one-Octopus band, a job for which he was perfectly suited.

     One fish recognized him and donated a sand half-dollar.

Moral: Without humility, there won’t be much inspiration or, for that matter, much charity.