A bartender is closing down his bar

A bartender is closing down his bar at the end of the evening. Three men remain hunched over at the bar. Each has been there the whole night and has been drinking heavily, but none of them seem to have the strength or desire to strike up a conversation.

As the bartender cleans the last few glasses before he kicks the three men out, he decides it’s worth a shot to try to cheer these poor guys up. He goes up to them and asks what’s got them down. As it turns out, the three of them have all just been kicked out by their wives, who were unable to put up with their terrible worst traits. The bartender says to them:

“Anything that someone else sees as a bad trait can be spun around. Tell me your bad traits and I promise you I can show you a way that they help you in some way or even make you a better person.”

Two of the men grudgingly agree, but the third is insistent.

“I promise you,” he says, “There’s no way to spin mine around.”

But the bartender is insistent.

The first man offers up. “My wife kicked me out because she couldn’t stand how lazy I was. Hard to see how you can spin that around.”

The bartender immediately replies, “That’s easy. Lazy people are great at finding ways to save themselves from wasting any unnecessary time or effort. Laziness can be a great motivator”.

The second man pipes up “Well my wife booted me because she couldn’t stand my constant cynicism”. The bartender quickly rebukes, “Always looking for and expecting the worst means that you can easily identify the worst possible outcome of situations in advance. That means you’re more prepared to face the worst and you can plan ahead in case of the worst case scenario.”

After two solid responses the third man is impressed, but still adamant that the bartender won’t be able to spin his huge flaw. The bartender remains insists that he can do it, though.

“Fine.” Says the third man. “I’m a pedophile."

...

The bartender is visibly taken aback.

“See?” Says the third man. “No way to spin that”.

...

“Well”, says the bartender after a pause, “I bet that means you drive slowly through school zones!”