I'd Rather Believe in You Puns

One cold winter's morning he was walking along a country road, when he heard a cry for help from a nearby lake.

He turned to see a little girl struggling in the broken ice in the middle of the lake. She'd been skating and had fallen into the icy water. Without a moment's hesitation the tramp ran onto the ice and slipped and slided over to the little girl. He managed to pull her out without breaking the ice further and he carried her back to the road.

He took off his coat and wrapped the little girl in it and began looking for a car to flag down. A few moments later a huge chauffeur-driven limo pulled up, and who stepped out but the little girl's father - the mayor of the nearby town and a multi-millionaire.

"How can I ever thank you sir?" says the father after putting his daughterinto the warmth of the limo.

"Just name your price - I'm a wealthy man."

"Ahem, well ..." stammered the tramp "...eh I'm a little short of cash, perhaps you could help me out"

"Certainly" says the girl's father and he pulls out his wallet.

"Oh dear" says the father, "I don't carry much cash with me, I only have ten dollars - but come home with me and I'll get more from the safe"

"No! No!" says the tramp, "Why ten dollars is more money than I've seen in my whole life - that will be plenty".

"Well, if you insist" says the father - "now what will you do with your money?"

"Oh that's easy" says the tramp "I've not had a rest in 20 years. I think I'll buy myself a holiday"

"Well good luck" says the father, and he gets into the car and signals his chauffeur to drive home.

"Ten Dollars" thinks the tramp, "I'm rich! I'm rich!", and off he goes to the town, to buy himself a holiday.

He finds a travel agent, walks in - much to the disgust of the staff - and goes up to the desk.

"I'll have one holiday please!"

"Ahem, which holiday would sir like" asked the girl at the desk, forcing a smile.

"Oh, any holiday I don't mind" replied the tramp.

"Well how much money does sir have to spend on sir's holiday?"

"Oh lots - anything up to ten dollars"

"TEN DOLLARS!! You'll never get a holiday for ten dollars" says the girl incredulously.

"Oh dear" said the tramp, "and I was so looking forward to a holiday - I'll probably never get another chance - isn't there anything you can do?"

"Well I don't think so sir, but hold on and I'll check"

The girl goes into the back of the shop, and searches in the deepest, dustiest filing drawers she can find. There - to her amazement -

I'm Australian, in Australia, specifically southern Australia. Very specifically, southern Victoria. Anyway. I took a long drive on Friday, out to Halls Gap, which is a beautiful part of the world. Oddly, I noticed along the way a significant amount of dead crows on the side of the road. Now I'm of county stock, and I know well that crows (although technically ravens I believe) are an extraordinarily intelligent bird, and it's very rare that you see one fallen by the roadside. As such, it was obvious to me as unusual. So I looked it up, and as it happened there'd been a study conducted regarding the very road I'd driven down. Turns out, this particular road was notorious for dead crows on account of two very basic reasons, the first, it's proximity to bushland which ensured a considerable amount of regular road kill (possums, kangaroos, etcetera) and second, the road was a significant trucking route. It follows logic, although I did not see it at the time, that it was determined that the trucks, rather than the cars which used the road were to blame regarding the amount of dead crows. How so, you ask? I, too, was interested to know. You see, the front of the average car in these modern times is made of plastic and paint whereas the Australian cross-country truck is equipped with a large alloy bullbar. A crow, when hit by a car will have chips of paint transferred onto its feathers whereas one downed by a truck will have none. Now crows are not usually struck by vehicles, as they are a very intelligent bird. As such, they employ a sentry bird, which looks out as the others eat from the road, and warns them of any approaching danger. Such is the intelligence of the crows! So why should they perish by truck in such numbers? The answer amazed me. As it turns out, a sentry crow sees the approaching vehicle and calls to his friends CAR! CAR! CAR! but he can't say truck