Title: That’s What I’m Looking For!
An army private was walking around the army base picking up little pieces of trash paper and looking at them, mumbling “That’s not it!” and then throwing the little pieces back down on the ground.
His sergeant told him to stop doing it “while on duty” and the soldier obeyed, but whenever he was “off duty,” he always returned to his habit of picking up little pieces of paper, examining them and discarding them & stating “That’s not it.”
The sergeant thought he’d “break” the private from this noisome habit and assigned the soldier to “policing up” the trash around the base’s “grounds,” but the soldier happily accepted the assignment because it let him pick up the little pieces of paper and look at them. Then he’d say “That’s not it.” and put the trash in his trash bag.
And at the end of this assignment, which would have made other soldiers detest it, this soldier asked to be re-assigned to the job … to his sergeant’s utter amazement.
Soon the sergeant got frustrated and sent the private to the Captain for discipline. The Captain said to the young man, “If you don’t stop picking up all these little pieces of paper, and saying “That’s not it.” … I’m going to send you over to the Post Psychologist and he’ll “cashier you out” of this man’s Army on a ‘Section 8’ Discharge,” for mental unfitness.
The private continued his peculiar behavior, and soon the Captain indeed, sent the poor man to the Post Psychologist and when the Psychologist finally slid the discharge papers across the desk after the private had actually been discharged,
the soldier picked up the discharge papers and said
“This is It! This is just what I’ve been looking for“.
contributed by Sam Jorrie