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.
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, 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 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.