Winning at Life

“Are you winning at life?” she asked.

“My marriage has broken down, I'm thirty-seven and bald, and my net worth is negative five thousand euros,” he replied.

“That sounds like you're a perfectly functional adult,” she observed.

“Oh, absolutely,” he said, “but it doesn't mean I'm winning at life. I haven't taken a scalpel to my carotids yet, that's probably the most positive aspect of my life at the moment. Continuing to perfuse my peripheries! Glasgow coma scale fifteen out of fifteen! Not covering the wall in arterial blood!”

“Is the Glasgow coma scale anything like the Bristol stool scale?” she inquired.

“Well, yes,” he replied, “in that it's used by doctors and it's a number.”