2015-01-21
Explanation
The Joke
A man asks his angel and devil shoulder-figures whether he should go out today. The angel enthusiastically says "Yes! Go and do good deeds!" The devil agrees he should go out, but adds a nihilistic twist: anything the man does will be worse than what someone better would have done. Despite this discouragement, the angel urges him to volunteer at a pet shelter, the devil suggests "or kick a dog," and then both agree "that's fine, just do something." But then the man says "Wait..." and an extended battle between the angel and devil plays out, ending with the man declaring he is going to eat a can of frosting while Facebooking. Both the angel and devil are defeated, and it is labeled "Another Lazy Saturday."
The Humor
The comic takes the classic "angel and devil on your shoulders" trope — representing the internal moral struggle between doing good and doing evil — and introduces a third, more realistic outcome: doing absolutely nothing. The joke is that both the angel and devil assume the man will at least do something with his day, whether virtuous or wicked. They never anticipated that he would choose total inaction and self-indulgent sloth.
The humor lies in the recognition that for many people, the real weekend struggle is not between good and evil but between productivity of any kind and complete vegetative laziness. The angel and devil are rendered irrelevant — not because the man has transcended moral choice, but because he has opted out of agency entirely. Eating frosting from a can while scrolling Facebook is neither good nor evil; it is simply the void.