A farmer lived on a quiet rural highway. But,
as time
went by, the traffic slowly built up at an alarming rate.
The traffic was so heavy and so fast that his chickens were being run
over at a rate of three to six a day. So one day he called the
sheriff’s office and said, “You’ve got to do something about all of
these
people driving so fast and killing all of my
chickens.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the sheriff.
“I don’t care,
just do something about those drivers!”
So the next day he had
the county workers go out and erect a sign that
said: SLOW: SCHOOL
CROSSING
Three days later the farmer called the sheriff and said,
“You’ve got
to do something about these drivers. The ’school
crossing’ sign seems
to make them go faster.”
So, again, the
sheriff sends out the county workers and they put up a
new sign:
SLOW: CHILDREN AT PLAY
And that really sped them up. So the f
armer called and called and
called everyday for three weeks.
Finally, he asked the sheriff, “Your signs
are doing no good. Is it all
right for me to put up my own sign?”
The sheriff told him, “Sure
thing, put up your own sign.” He was
going to let the farmer do
just about anything in order to have him stop
calling. Well, the
sheriff got no more calls from the farmer.
Three weeks after the
farmers last call, the sheriff decided to call
him. “How’s the problem
with those drivers. Did you put up your sign?”
“Oh, I sure did.
And not one chicken has been killed since then. I’ve
got to go.
I’m very busy.” And he hung up the phone.
The sheriff thought to
himself, “I’d better go to that farmer’s
house and look at that
sign… There might be something there that WE could
use to slow
down drivers.”
So the sheriff drove out to the farmer’s house, and
he saw the sign.
It was a whole sheet of plywood. And writte
n in large yellow letters
were the words: SLOW: NUDIST COLONY