"Teaching A Pig To Sing"
(My thanks to Fred Allen, Mark Twain,
and any others I may have plagiarized here.)
Rulan T. Proudfoot was born ignorant
and had been losing ground ever since.
Nothing annoyed him like a new idea.
He had one problem:
He looked intelligent.
This caused people to draw him into discussions,
hoping to gain enlightenment.
It didn't take long for the average stranger
to notice that Rulan disagreed with everything.
Rulan didn't know he was ignorant,
but he did know how drive an intellectual to drink.
His opinions had been gathered by taking the opposite side
to everything anybody tried to tell him.
Once he took that side,
his viewpoint was set in concrete.
He married a woman who was bent on changing him.
because his mother had told him not to.
Lydia Ferrit Proudfoot was a strong intelligent wife,
who saw Rulan as a diamond in the rough,
that just needed polishing.
She started on that project drawing him into little talks
about art and current events
and planned to work up to religion, politics, and other culture.
She started taking a little wine early in the day,
and by their first anniversary
the gin made it hard for her to even say "politics".
She was saying "politisks".
Rulan was happy as a mink.
He hadn't budged an inch on any subject.
Their argument stopped abruptly one evening
when a UFO landed on the birdhouse,
scaring the crap out of a bird sleeping inside.
It was a small UFO.
Tiny green aliens climbed out
and began speaking in earnest to the bird,
who didn't look happy.
The aliens weren't happy either,
not getting any response from the bird.
They argued among themselves for several minutes,
and then took off over the water tower.
Meanwhile, Lydia had sobered up abruptly,
and Rulan was waiting for her take on the situation,
so he could get on the opposite side.
She said:
"We just saw a space ship land on our birdhouse!"
and Rulan was startled to find that he had no case against her.
There was a long silence.
Without a word,
he went through the house and out the front door,
and never came back.
The moral...
"Never try to teach a pig to sing.
It's a waste of time, and it annoys the pig".
Copyright © Jan. 14, 2005, Jack Blanchard. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
