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 farmer 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 his self, “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 written
in
large yellow letters were the words:
SLOW: NUDIST COLONY
