Sunday, February 19, 2006
The Sheepherder And The Dude
A Navajo was tending his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee appeared out of a dust cloud, advanced toward him and stopped. The driver a 24 year-old young man wearing a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and a Yves Saint Laurent tie, leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd, "if I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The Navajo looked at the young guy, then at his peacefully grazing flock, and calmly answered, "Sure."
The young man parked his car, whipped out his notebook computer, connected it to a cell phone, surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, then opened up a database and some Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas. He finally printed out a 50-page report on his hi-tech miniaturized printer, turned around to our shepherd and said, "You have here exactly 1,586 sheep!"
“Amazing! That's correct! As I agreed, you may take one of my sheep," said the Navajo.
The shepherd watched the man make a selection and bundle it into his Cherokee. When he was finished, the sheepherder said, "if I can tell you exactly what your political persuasion is, where you came from, and who you work for, will you give back my sheep?"
"Okay, why not," answered the young man.
"You’re a Democrat, you're from Washington, D.C., and you’re working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs," said the Navajo.
"Wow! That's correct, " said the young man. "How ever did you know that?"
"Easy, answered the shepherd, "Nobody called you, but you showed up here anyway. You wanted to be paid for providing a answer to a question for which I already knew the answer, AND you don't know squat about what you're doing because you took my dog."
© Copyright 2006 - 2014, James H. Shott
