THE RAFFLE The old farmer's mule had finally died of old age just before spring planting,
so the farmer made a trip to town to buy another mule. His $125 didn't
buy much, but he was satisfied with his purchase and he made arrangements
to return the next day with a horse trailer to pick up the mule and the dealer
agreed to keep it overnight for him. Early the next day, the old man returned. "Jim," said the mule dealer, "that
old mule died last night. I'm real sorry to have to tell you this. I know
you were counting on it for your spring garden." The dealer offered Jim his
money back, but Jim refused because a bargain was a bargain. He loaded the
dead mule on his truck and left. A couple of months later, the mule dealer happened to drive by Jim's place
and was astonished to see Jim working his garden on a new $4,000 garden tractor.
Honking his horn, he called Jim over and asked him how in the world he had
managed to buy a tractor when, not too long ago, all he had was the $125 that
he'd spent on the dead mule. "Well", Jim explained, "After leaving with the mule, I had this idea. So,
I stopped off at the local print shop and had 2,000 $2 raffle tickets printed
up. 'Grand prize: Gardening Equipment.' I sold all the raffle tickets to people
around town. "Yeah, but where did you get the gardening equipment from Jim? "From you..." "Nope, not really... the only one really ticked off was the winner, so I
gave him his money back."
"No, I mean the equipment you had as the raffle prize."
"I got it from you..."
"Jim, all you got from me was a dead mule."
"I know, that's what I raffled off."
"My Goodness, Jim! You raffled off a dead mule?! I'll bet that really ticked
them off when they realized the mule was dead."