John The Farmer
John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several
hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets", and ten roosters, whose
job it was to fertilize the eggs (for you city folks).
The farmer kept records and
any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was
replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of
tiny bells and 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
and 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
would sneak up on a pullet, do his job and 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...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.