Once upon a time, in a small, forgotten corner of the countryside, there lived a hillbilly farmer named Jed. Now, Jed wasn’t a wealthy man by any means.

His farm was small, and the land wasn’t the most fertile. But it was home, and for all its imperfections, it was a life he had grown used to.

Jed’s farm was modest. He had a few cows, chickens, and a stubborn old mule named Bessie, who was the most dependable animal on the farm. Of course, when things were going smoothly, Jed’s days consisted of long hours of hard work—mending fences, collecting eggs, and, most importantly, plowing the fields.

But there was always one thing that made those long days particularly hard to endure: his wife, Myrtle.

Now, Myrtle wasn’t a bad woman, not by most reckonings. But mercy, could she talk. From sunrise to supper, Myrtle had something to say. Whether it was about the neighbors, the weather, or that one time in ’82 when the preacher mispronounced “Deuteronomy,” she could go on like a radio with a broken off-switch.

Jed tried everything. He “accidentally” left the radio on full blast in the barn. He spent extra time talking to the cows. He even tried pretending he lost his hearing in one ear — until Myrtle started yelling directly into the other one.

One day, after Myrtle had chewed his ear off for not buttering the cornbread “correctly,” Jed wandered out to the barn, plopped himself onto an overturned feed bucket, and let out a deep sigh.

Bessie the mule glanced over at him with that same deadpan expression she always wore.

“You know, Bessie,” Jed muttered, “if you could talk, I reckon I’d divorce Myrtle and marry you.”

To Jed’s shock, Bessie turned her head, looked him square in the eye, and said, clear as day:

“Jed… with your taste in women, I’d rather stay a mule.”