OT: The farmer and the bell

[Jim <alarminex@xxxxxxx>]

John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several
hundred
young layers (hens), called "pullets" & 10 roosters, whose job it was
to
fertilize the eggs.

The farmer kept records & any rooster that didn't perform went into
the
soup pot & was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he
bought
a set of tiny bells & attached them to his roosters.

Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance
which
rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch & fill out an
efficiency report simply by listening to the bells. The farmer's
favorite
rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on
this
particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all.
John
went to investigate.

The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets,
hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

But to Farmer John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so
it
couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job & walk on to the
next
one.

John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County
Fair and
he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was that
the
judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize, but they
also
awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly old Butch was a
politician
in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win
two of
the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at
sneaking
up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying
attention.

 Vote carefully; the bells are not always audible.