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 every day 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 written in large yellow letters were the words:
SLOW: NUDIST COLONY.
