June 26, 2025 • 10 mins
This week we meet Joe. Joe’s not really enjoying life.
Joe’s stuck. In a sort of emotional quicksand. He can’t pull himself out. Doesn’t know what to do or where to turn.
Joe blames his confinement on his wife, his kids, his job, his friends, but just under the surface Joe knows who’s really to blame.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Joe. Joe, Well, he's not really
(00:45):
enjoying life. Joe's stuck in a sort of emotional quicksand
he can't pull himself out. Doesn't know what to do
or where to turn. Joe blames his confinement on his wife,
his kids, his job, as friends, but just under the surface,
Joe knows who's really to blame. Joe's only life. Joe
(01:15):
was depressed. At least he thought he was depressed. It
seemed like a good explanation for his general funk. He
felt like he lived outside his body, like he was
looking in at himself from afar. Joe hated his job,
hated his boss, hated most of his coworkers. He'd known
(01:39):
twenty years ago. He'd hate his job, but he took
the damn job anyway, because college was over and he
didn't know what the hell else to do. It was
okay for a while, making money, buying a new car,
taking ski trips to Colorado with the guys, but then
it just got to be a drug. So he tried
(02:02):
changing jobs, but the new job was just as stressful
and boring and irritating as the old job. So Joe
got married, not really because he wanted to get married,
but because they'd been going out for a while and
it was either get married or break up. He tried
breaking up, but that didn't work, so they got married.
(02:25):
Now a couple decades have passed more, Joe doesn't really
like his wife and she doesn't really like him, but
they do an okay job of pretending. What else are
they going to do? Get divorced? No way, gotta muddle through.
It's not like he hates her, more like, well, more
(02:47):
like maybe he hates himself. And then then there's the kids.
He doesn't much like them either, loves them of course,
got to love him for Christ's sakes, or you might
as well just blow your brains out, but like them
now that they're teenagers. You gotta be kidding me. They're
as silent as earthworms, until, of course, they want something.
(03:09):
Then they're more demanding than the tax collector. Money or
rides home from friends' houses in the middle of the night,
or brand new fucking iPhones just because Apple came out
with a new color. He talks to the kids, tries
to tell him stuff, but they don't listen. They don't
hear a word, he says. The guys that he considers
(03:33):
his friends, they don't hear a word, he says. Either.
They sit around the local bar or in the backyard
drinking beer and go blah blah blah blah blah to
the cows come home, but nobody listens, nobody gives a
shit what anybody else has to say. They're as interchangeable
as cogs and Joe's bicycle chain. Yeah, depressed, that's what
(03:57):
Joe is. So what's Joe to do? What's his next play?
Buying shit is absolutely a waste of time. A band
aid on a gaping wound, clothes, cars, phones, computers, eighty
four inch TVs, silk pillow cases, electric toothbrushes, electric lawnmowers,
(04:20):
a new callaway driver, a new ping putter, a new
pair of fucking eyeglasses. None of it makes a damn
bit of difference in his state of mind. He chases
the crapowla for a while, finally pulls the trigger, and bam.
A day or less later, he's right smack back in
(04:41):
his funky state of despair. Same thing now with vacations.
Joe hates vacations. As a young fella, he had adventures
to far flung countries where he couldn't speak the language
and maybe only had a couple hundred bucks in his pocket.
(05:01):
Now he has business class airline tickets and accommodations in
four star hotels and recommendations for only the best restaurants
in town, and half a dozen credit cards in his wallet.
And it's only just one big goddamn boar everywhere he goes,
it's all the same. Sure, he could strip himself down,
(05:25):
stuff some green backs in his pocket and head into
the jungles, but but fuck, come on, he doesn't have
the kahones anymore. For that. Joe's a goddamn gelding. Though
he still makes loves to his wife occasionally, but only
after taking a big fat blue pill and downing a
shot of tequila. His next play, Yeah, what's that gonna be.
(05:52):
He gets up in the morning after a shitty night's sleep,
drags his ass to the shower, ignores his paunchy stone
and flabby man tits. He's not crazy out of shape,
probably only like fifteen pounds off his fighting weight, but
he can't find the energy or the fucking desire to
go to the gym or even take the dog for
(06:14):
more than a ten minute walk. He just wants to
sit around on his ass and stare at the boob
tube sports, mostly with the endless ads for gas guzzling
pickup trucks and cheap beer and pills to strengthen your
pissed stream, ads that make Joe think there are millions
(06:35):
tens of millions of American males out there suffering the
exact same fate as himself. Ever since COVID, Joe works
at home most days, which means after he showers and shaves,
he just pulls on sweats and slippers, makes some coffee,
(06:56):
and plops down in his snazzy Herman mel executive's chair,
where he reads a few emails, plays wordle checks out
the headlines, writes a few more emails, works on the
new proposal to acquire Datacom Inc. Takes a dump with
some amount of effort, gets another cup of coffee, makes
(07:19):
a couple more calls, and La de da de fucking' dah.
The day passes, some gas passes. At lunch, he argues
with his wife about charges on her credit card. At dinner,
he yells at his daughter about her spray on tan.
After dinner, he goes to his son's basketball game. His
(07:44):
son is a junior on the varsity squad, doesn't play much,
a decent player, but no balls. Afraid of failure tonight,
he gets into the game for the last couple minutes
because his team is down twenty and any hope of
victory is long dead. He turns the ball over twice,
(08:06):
missus an easy layup. Joe tells his son on the
way home in the car not to sweat it, not
to worry about his performance. It's just a high school
basketball game, after all. But then all gnarled up inside,
Joe begins to lecture the sixteen year old on his
(08:26):
mediocre effort and his lousy ball handling skills. Even before
he's done with his critique, Joe starts feeling bad about
criticizing the kid, but can Joe bring himself to just
shut the fuck up, maybe even apologize. Fuck no, Joe
(08:47):
never apologizes to anybody about nothing. And in the morning,
a Saturday morning, a cold, sharp, late January morning, under
a deep blue winter sky, Joe tells his wife he
has a few errands to run and he'll be back later.
She is not unhappy to see him go. Joe stops
(09:11):
at the hardware store and buys a flashlight. He stops
at the gas station and fills the sedan's tank with
regular He goes into the convenience store and buys beer
and chips. He takes a leak, and then Joe climbs
back into his sedan, tunes in some of his favorite
(09:32):
rock and roll, drives out to the interstate, heads west
and doesn't look back. Hey, thanks for listening to this
original audio presentation of Joe's Only Life, nurieded by the author.
(09:53):
If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds
to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, and then
please go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional
information about the author and to view his extensive canon.
The ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Bligliasi, and
(10:15):
Josh Kilani and is part of the Elvis Duran podcast
networked in partnership with iHeart Productions. Until next time, this
is Bill Simpson, your ten minute storyteller,
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten
Minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to
(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.
This week we meet Joe. Joe, Well, he's not really
(00:45):
enjoying life. Joe's stuck in a sort of emotional quicksand
he can't pull himself out. Doesn't know what to do
or where to turn. Joe blames his confinement on his wife,
his kids, his job, as friends, but just under the surface,
Joe knows who's really to blame. Joe's only life. Joe
(01:15):
was depressed. At least he thought he was depressed. It
seemed like a good explanation for his general funk. He
felt like he lived outside his body, like he was
looking in at himself from afar. Joe hated his job,
hated his boss, hated most of his coworkers. He'd known
(01:39):
twenty years ago. He'd hate his job, but he took
the damn job anyway, because college was over and he
didn't know what the hell else to do. It was
okay for a while, making money, buying a new car,
taking ski trips to Colorado with the guys, but then
it just got to be a drug. So he tried
(02:02):
changing jobs, but the new job was just as stressful
and boring and irritating as the old job. So Joe
got married, not really because he wanted to get married,
but because they'd been going out for a while and
it was either get married or break up. He tried
breaking up, but that didn't work, so they got married.
(02:25):
Now a couple decades have passed more, Joe doesn't really
like his wife and she doesn't really like him, but
they do an okay job of pretending. What else are
they going to do? Get divorced? No way, gotta muddle through.
It's not like he hates her, more like, well, more
(02:47):
like maybe he hates himself. And then then there's the kids.
He doesn't much like them either, loves them of course,
got to love him for Christ's sakes, or you might
as well just blow your brains out, but like them
now that they're teenagers. You gotta be kidding me. They're
as silent as earthworms, until, of course, they want something.
(03:09):
Then they're more demanding than the tax collector. Money or
rides home from friends' houses in the middle of the night,
or brand new fucking iPhones just because Apple came out
with a new color. He talks to the kids, tries
to tell him stuff, but they don't listen. They don't
hear a word, he says. The guys that he considers
(03:33):
his friends, they don't hear a word, he says. Either.
They sit around the local bar or in the backyard
drinking beer and go blah blah blah blah blah to
the cows come home, but nobody listens, nobody gives a
shit what anybody else has to say. They're as interchangeable
as cogs and Joe's bicycle chain. Yeah, depressed, that's what
(03:57):
Joe is. So what's Joe to do? What's his next play?
Buying shit is absolutely a waste of time. A band
aid on a gaping wound, clothes, cars, phones, computers, eighty
four inch TVs, silk pillow cases, electric toothbrushes, electric lawnmowers,
(04:20):
a new callaway driver, a new ping putter, a new
pair of fucking eyeglasses. None of it makes a damn
bit of difference in his state of mind. He chases
the crapowla for a while, finally pulls the trigger, and bam.
A day or less later, he's right smack back in
(04:41):
his funky state of despair. Same thing now with vacations.
Joe hates vacations. As a young fella, he had adventures
to far flung countries where he couldn't speak the language
and maybe only had a couple hundred bucks in his pocket.
(05:01):
Now he has business class airline tickets and accommodations in
four star hotels and recommendations for only the best restaurants
in town, and half a dozen credit cards in his wallet.
And it's only just one big goddamn boar everywhere he goes,
it's all the same. Sure, he could strip himself down,
(05:25):
stuff some green backs in his pocket and head into
the jungles, but but fuck, come on, he doesn't have
the kahones anymore. For that. Joe's a goddamn gelding. Though
he still makes loves to his wife occasionally, but only
after taking a big fat blue pill and downing a
shot of tequila. His next play, Yeah, what's that gonna be.
(05:52):
He gets up in the morning after a shitty night's sleep,
drags his ass to the shower, ignores his paunchy stone
and flabby man tits. He's not crazy out of shape,
probably only like fifteen pounds off his fighting weight, but
he can't find the energy or the fucking desire to
go to the gym or even take the dog for
(06:14):
more than a ten minute walk. He just wants to
sit around on his ass and stare at the boob
tube sports, mostly with the endless ads for gas guzzling
pickup trucks and cheap beer and pills to strengthen your
pissed stream, ads that make Joe think there are millions
(06:35):
tens of millions of American males out there suffering the
exact same fate as himself. Ever since COVID, Joe works
at home most days, which means after he showers and shaves,
he just pulls on sweats and slippers, makes some coffee,
(06:56):
and plops down in his snazzy Herman mel executive's chair,
where he reads a few emails, plays wordle checks out
the headlines, writes a few more emails, works on the
new proposal to acquire Datacom Inc. Takes a dump with
some amount of effort, gets another cup of coffee, makes
(07:19):
a couple more calls, and La de da de fucking' dah.
The day passes, some gas passes. At lunch, he argues
with his wife about charges on her credit card. At dinner,
he yells at his daughter about her spray on tan.
After dinner, he goes to his son's basketball game. His
(07:44):
son is a junior on the varsity squad, doesn't play much,
a decent player, but no balls. Afraid of failure tonight,
he gets into the game for the last couple minutes
because his team is down twenty and any hope of
victory is long dead. He turns the ball over twice,
(08:06):
missus an easy layup. Joe tells his son on the
way home in the car not to sweat it, not
to worry about his performance. It's just a high school
basketball game, after all. But then all gnarled up inside,
Joe begins to lecture the sixteen year old on his
(08:26):
mediocre effort and his lousy ball handling skills. Even before
he's done with his critique, Joe starts feeling bad about
criticizing the kid, but can Joe bring himself to just
shut the fuck up, maybe even apologize. Fuck no, Joe
(08:47):
never apologizes to anybody about nothing. And in the morning,
a Saturday morning, a cold, sharp, late January morning, under
a deep blue winter sky, Joe tells his wife he
has a few errands to run and he'll be back later.
She is not unhappy to see him go. Joe stops
(09:11):
at the hardware store and buys a flashlight. He stops
at the gas station and fills the sedan's tank with
regular He goes into the convenience store and buys beer
and chips. He takes a leak, and then Joe climbs
back into his sedan, tunes in some of his favorite
(09:32):
rock and roll, drives out to the interstate, heads west
and doesn't look back. Hey, thanks for listening to this
original audio presentation of Joe's Only Life, nurieded by the author.
(09:53):
If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds
to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, and then
please go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional
information about the author and to view his extensive canon.
The ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Bligliasi, and
(10:15):
Josh Kilani and is part of the Elvis Duran podcast
networked in partnership with iHeart Productions. Until next time, this
is Bill Simpson, your ten minute storyteller,
Host
Bill Simpson
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