A woman was heartbroken when her dog disappeared. She put an ad in the paper offering a reward for its return. The next morning the phone rang. It was the voice of a woman: "I'm calling about your dog." Then she began to cough. She explained she wasn't feeling too well. In fact, she hadn't felt well for three years since her husband had died. She went on to say that after her mother and father had passed away, that recently her sister had contracted cancer and was undergoing painful treatments. Her friends weren't doing well, either. She gave details of their various illnesses and went on to describe the funerals of several of them. After thirty minutes of this, the woman who had lost the dog tried to get the caller back on the subject. She asked, "But what about my dog?" The other woman replied, "Oh, I don't have him, but I thought you might be feeling badly about losing it, so I thought I'd just call to cheer you up!"