Upon retirement, Dave had realized that he had poured himself into his work his entire life and never married. After spending a few weeks at home alone he decided that he needed some companionship and headed for the pet store. After looking around the store he thought that he would like to purchase a bird. He began looking at the selection available and noticed that one bird sold for $100 and the bird in the next cage was priced at $10,000. He looked and looked and studied the two birds, but he could not tell the difference, so he called over the store owner and asked him to explain.
The owner said, “The $10,000 bird is a perfect bird and the $100 bird is just the average everyday bird.”.
“But I still don’t see the difference,” said the old man.
The owner explained, “The $100 bird has a small hump on his beak and that made him just average.”
“You’re telling me that if that $100 dollar bird didn’t have that tiny little hump in his beak he would be worth $10,000?!?!?” exclaimed Dave.
“Well,” says the owner, “he might not be worth $10,000 but he would be worth quite a bit more.”
With much delight Dave says “I’ll take him! You see, I have been a master machinist my whole life and have worked with tools and my hands since I was a young boy. I think that I can file that hump off the bird’s beak and make some extra money.”
“You might be able to do that,” says the owner, “but I must warn you that there is a membrane in the bird’s beak and if you file too deeply you will kill the bird.”
“No problem,” says Dave with great confidence, and leaves the store.
About a week later Dave was back in the pet store and the owner asks how things went with the bird. “He died,” Dave said dejectedly.
The owner says, “I warned you that you could file to deeply and that would kill the bird.”
“Oh, that’s not what happened,” replied Dave.
“Well what happened then?”
“I accidentally crushed his head in the vice.”