Farmer John’s Chickens
Farmer John lived on a quiet rural highway. But as time went by, the traffic slowly built up and became so heavy and so fast that his chickens were being run over at a rate of three to six a day.
So one day Farmer John called the local police station and said, “You’ve got to do something about all of these people driving so fast and killing my chickens.”
“What do you want us to do?” asked the policeman.
“I don’t care, just do something about those crazy drivers!”
So the next day the policeman had the Main Road’s workers go out to erect a sign that said:
SLOW:SCHOOL CROSSING
Three days later Farmer John called the policeman and said, “You’ve got to do something about these drivers. The ‘school crossing’ sign seems to make them go even faster!” So, again, the policeman sends out the Main Roads workers’ and they put up a new sign:
SLOW: CHILDREN AT PLAY
That really sped them up. So Farmer John called and called and called every day for three weeks. Finally, he asked the policeman, “Your signs are doing no good at all … can I put up my own sign?”
The policeman said, “Sure, go ahead.”
He was willing to let Farmer John do just about anything in order to get him to stop calling to complain.
The policeman got no more calls from Farmer John.
Three weeks later, curiosity got the best of the policeman and he decided to give Farmer John a call. “ How’s the problem with those drivers. Did you put up your sign?”
“Oh, I sure did,” replied Farmer John, ”and not one chicken has been killed since then. I’ve got to go. I’m very busy.” He hung up the phone.
The policeman was really curious and he thought to himself, “I’d better go out there and take a look at that sign … it might be something that WE could use to slow down drivers.”
So he drove out to Farmer John’s house, and his jaw dropped the moment he saw the sign.
It was spray painted on a sheet of wood….