Rocking Out At Rock Bottom: The Story of Job
This story takes place in the Middle East. Back then it wasn’t even called the Middle East. It was called Uz and in the land of Uz there was this one cat who was freaking loaded. We’re talking Bentleys, Beamers, butlers, infinity pools, the works. This dude’s name was Job and he was the balls.
Job’s entire life was like a Nike commercial – anything you can do, he could do better. Squeezing out kids? Job had ten. Owning livestock? Job had 11,000 sheep, camels, oxen, and she-donkeys. Raging from dusk till dawn? Between feasting at his place and getting down at his kids’ cribs, Job was rockin that party eight days a week. Prince Ali in Aladdin may have had sixty elephants, llamas galore, bears and lions, a brass band and more, but he didn’t have a thing on Job (aka The Wizard of Uz).
Oh, and did I mention that Job was also a better person than you? He offered more sacrifices than you, memorized more Bible verses than you, spun a better dreidel than you, and looked more like Matisyahu than you. The guy was sweet. We all know God doesn’t have favorites, but if he did it would have been Job.
One day Satan was hanging out in heaven bragging to God about how jacked up things were down on earth, and God was like, “Oh yeah? Check out my main man, Job. That dude’s a freaking champ.”
Satan wasn’t impressed.
“Well yeah, he’s a champ,” he said. “I’d be a champ too if you gave me ten kids, a house full of flat screens, a buncha camels, and some 1,500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.”
“Fine,” said God. “Screw up Job’s life if you want. Twenty bucks says he’ll still praise me. Just don’t make him sick and don’t take his sheets.”
“Deal,” said Satan. And they shook on it to make it official.
The next day Job was hanging out on the back deck, grilling kabobs and enjoying some Mike’s Hard, when one of his servants ran up with news that all the oxen and all the she-donkeys had just been murdered for no reason. This servant was still talking when another guy ran up and told Job that a fireball had fallen from the sky and killed all 7,000 of the sheep. The sheep guy was still dropping his bomb when a third guy ran up and told Job that a raiding party from a neighboring ranch had just slaughtered all the camels.
By most standards, this was already a pretty miserable Monday, but it was about to get worse. Another of Job’s servants ran up and told Job that he had just been playing poker with all of Job’s kids at the oldest son’s bachelor pad. He’d gone looking for an ATM so he could buy back in, and, while he was out, a tornado had knocked over the building and killed everyone inside. Suddenly Job wasn’t in the mood for kabobs anymore.
He took off his shirt and shaved his head. This didn’t really help, but it was worth a shot. He cried a lot and yelled a lot and threw some tiki torches into the pool, and then, after he had composed himself, he went back to his servants and said, “I guess God wanted all my stuff back. But it all came from Him in the first place. So I can’t really be pissed about it, can I?”
Not long after this, Satan was back in heaven catching up with some angels he had been friends with before he got fired. God saw him up there and went over to collect his $20.00. “This is bogus,” said Satan. “Sure he kept praising you. I’d keep praising you too, if you had only taken my stuff. But no, you set me on fire for all eternity and now I hate you. Double or nothing says Job would be the same way.”
“Fine,” said God. “Go ahead and make him sick. Just don’t kill him.”
“Deal,” said Satan.
The next day Job woke up feeling like he’d just come off a five-day bender. He had a splitting headache. He was spiking a fever. He had a Sharpie mustache and bruises he didn’t remember getting. Every part of his body ached. And, to top it all off, he was covered from head to toe in poison ivy. He stumbled out into the backyard, fell spread-eagle into his bonfire pit and started scratching his sores with a rusty lawn mower blade.
His wife found him there later that afternoon and tried to cheer him up by saying, “Why don’t you just curse God and die?” Real bowl of sunshine, wasn’t she? But Job said, “What are you, retarded? So what, you’re gonna thank God when He gives you that hideous Louis Vuitton bag you love so much, but then throw a hissy-fit when He covers me in poison ivy? That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, which is saying something.” This further cemented Job’s status as God’s “I don’t have favorites, but MAN, I really like Job better than most of you” guy.
Even when his three best friends spent, like, 25 pages of the Bible trying to convince him that he was an idiot and that God didn’t love him anymore, Job stayed strong and said, “God’s like a 2nd year MBA student. I’m like a kindergartner on the short bus. Let’s go with what He says.” What a freaking champ!
In the end, Satan had to pay God the $40.00 he owed Him and admit that Job was fly. Possibly fly like a G6. God cured Job’s poison ivy and gave him twice the livestock and twice the thread count he’d had before. He also gave him seven more sons and three more smoking hot daughters.
As for Job, he spent 140 more years kicking ass and taking names all across the land of Uz. Let’s all raise our bottles to Job. The man, the myth, the balls.