Lean Lisa

In a small village, there once lived a woman called Lean Lisa, and never was anyone more aptly named. She was so thin that she could have hidden behind a broomstick, and so lazy that she made sloths look industrious. Lisa was married to a man called Lanky Laurence, who was every bit as idle as his wife, and together they formed the most spectacularly lazy couple the world has ever known.

Lean Lisa was so extraordinarily thin because she could never be bothered to eat properly. Cooking required effort, chewing required energy, and even swallowing seemed like too much work for someone of her particular disposition. She lived mainly on air and the occasional drop of water that happened to fall into her mouth during rainstorms.

“My dear Laurence,” Lisa would say to her husband, lying stretched out on their bed like a wilted flower, “I believe I’m feeling rather peckish. Would you be so kind as to fetch me something to eat?”

Lanky Laurence, who was equally averse to any form of physical exertion, would respond from his position sprawled across the floor, “My darling Lisa, I would be delighted to help you, but I’m afraid my legs have forgotten how to work. Perhaps you could manage the journey to the kitchen yourself?”

“Oh, but Laurence,” Lisa would reply with a dramatic sigh, “the kitchen is at least twelve whole steps away. That’s practically a journey to the next village. I’m far too delicate for such an expedition.”

And so they would both lie there, debating who should make the tremendous effort of walking to the kitchen, until they were both too tired from talking to be hungry anymore.

One day, their neighbor gave them a cow. It was a generous gift, meant to help them improve their circumstances, but Lisa and Laurence viewed it as an enormous burden.

“What are we going to do with a cow?” Lisa moaned from her bed. “Cows need to be milked every day! That means getting up, walking outside, and actually moving our hands up and down. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Laurence thoughtfully, “we could train the cow to milk itself. Surely that would be more efficient for everyone involved.”

They tried this approach for several days, speaking encouragingly to the cow from their window and waiting for it to develop self-milking abilities. When this proved unsuccessful, they decided they needed a different strategy.

“I have an idea,” announced Lisa. “We’ll take turns caring for the cow. I’ll take care of it one day, and you take care of it the next. That way, we each only have to work every other day.”

This seemed like a reasonable plan until Lisa realized that her first turn was approaching. The night before her scheduled cow-tending day, she lay awake worrying about the enormous effort required.

“Laurence,” she whispered in the darkness, “I’ve been thinking about tomorrow, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to milk the cow. What if the bucket is too heavy? What if the cow kicks me? What if I have to walk all the way to the barn twice in one day?”

“Well,” yawned Laurence, “why don’t we both take care of the cow together? That way, we can share the work.”

“But that means we’ll both have to get up,” Lisa pointed out. “That seems like twice as much work, not half as much.”

They spent the entire night debating this problem, using up so much energy in discussion that by morning they were both too exhausted to milk the cow anyway.

The cow, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and began to moo loudly, expressing her displeasure with her inattentive caretakers.

“That cow is making far too much noise,” complained Lisa, covering her ears with a pillow. “All that mooing is disrupting my rest. Can’t you make her be quiet?”

“I would,” replied Laurence, “but that would require going outside and actually speaking to her. Perhaps if we ignore her long enough, she’ll learn to moo more quietly.”

The cow’s situation continued to worsen, and soon the entire neighborhood could hear her plaintive calls. Their neighbors began to complain about the noise, which created a new problem for Lisa and Laurence.

“Now the neighbors are bothering us,” Lisa sighed. “First the cow makes noise, and now the people make noise about the cow making noise. It’s becoming quite impossible to get any proper rest around here.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Laurence, “we could move to a quieter neighborhood. Somewhere far away from cows and neighbors and other bothersome creatures.”

“But moving would require packing our belongings,” Lisa pointed out. “And packing would require getting up and putting things in boxes. And then we’d have to carry the boxes. It sounds dreadfully strenuous.”

“You’re right,” agreed Laurence. “Moving is clearly out of the question. We’ll just have to find another solution.”

After much deliberation (which they conducted entirely from their respective horizontal positions), they decided to sell the cow. This seemed like the perfect answer until they realized that selling a cow involved finding a buyer, negotiating a price, and actually handing over the animal – all of which required far more energy than they were prepared to expend.

“Perhaps,” suggested Lisa, “we could sell the cow without actually being present for the transaction. We could put up a sign that says ‘Cow for Sale’ and let people figure out the details themselves.”

They spent an entire day crafting the perfect sign (writing each letter was exhausting work that required frequent rest breaks), and then faced the monumental task of actually posting it.

“The fence post is at least twenty steps from the house,” Lisa observed. “That’s an enormous distance. What if I collapse from exhaustion before I reach it?”

“We could throw the sign from the window,” Laurence suggested. “That way, we wouldn’t have to leave the house at all.”

They attempted this method, but their aim was poor (aiming required effort), and the sign landed in their own yard, where it was immediately eaten by the very cow they were trying to sell.

“Well,” said Lisa, watching the cow chew up their hard work, “that’s that problem solved. No sign, no sale, no need to deal with buyers.”

“Indeed,” agreed Laurence. “Sometimes the best solution is no solution at all.”

But the cow problem persisted, and eventually, the local authorities became involved. A stern-faced official arrived at their door to inquire about the animal welfare situation.

“Good day,” said the official. “I’m here to investigate reports of an improperly cared-for cow.”

Lisa and Laurence looked at each other from their positions on opposite sides of the room (they had been too lazy to sit close together).

“Oh dear,” said Lisa. “That sounds very official and serious. Dealing with official and serious matters requires a great deal of energy. Perhaps you could come back when we’re feeling more energetic?”

“When might that be?” asked the official.

Lisa and Laurence considered this question carefully.

“Well,” said Laurence finally, “we’ve been quite tired for several years now. I’d estimate we might feel energetic again sometime next decade.”

The official was not amused by this response and informed them that they had twenty-four hours to properly care for their cow or face serious consequences.

This deadline created a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Twenty-four hours seemed like an impossibly short amount of time to accomplish anything requiring actual effort.

“We could try taking care of the cow in shifts,” suggested Lisa. “I could work for one minute, then rest for an hour, then you could work for one minute and rest for an hour.”

“That seems reasonable,” agreed Laurence, “but who goes first? And what if the person who goes second is too tired from watching the first person work?”

They spent twenty-three hours and fifty-eight minutes debating the logistics of their cow-care plan, leaving only two minutes to actually implement it.

In those final two minutes, they achieved what could only be described as a miracle of efficiency born from desperation. They managed to milk the cow, clean her stall, and provide fresh food and water – all while moving so slowly that observers weren’t entirely certain they were moving at all.

“Well,” said Lisa afterward, collapsing dramatically onto her bed, “that was the most exhausting experience of my entire life. I don’t think I’ll recover for at least a month.”

“Indeed,” agreed Laurence, sprawling on the floor. “I feel as though I’ve run a marathon while carrying a piano on my back.”

The official, who had witnessed their slow-motion cow care, was so amazed by their unique approach to work that he wrote a report recommending them for the national registry of “Most Creatively Lazy Citizens.”

And so Lean Lisa and Lanky Laurence became famous throughout the land, not for their industry or their energy, but for their remarkable ability to accomplish the bare minimum of work in the maximum amount of time.

They lived the rest of their days in their own special version of happiness, moving slowly through life like two sleepy snails, always finding new and innovative ways to avoid effort while still somehow managing to survive.

The cow, meanwhile, learned to take care of herself and became the most independent and self-sufficient animal in the entire village. Some say she even learned to write her own name, though Lisa and Laurence were too lazy to verify this claim.

And the moral of the story? Sometimes even the laziest people can accomplish great things when they absolutely have to – though they’ll probably need a very long nap afterward.