Once upon a time there was a young girl named Helen who bought a donkey
from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to
deliver the donkey the next day.
When the farmer drove up the next day, he said, ‘Sorry miss, I have some
bad news. The donkey is on my truck, but I’m afraid
he’s dead.’
Helen replied,’ Well then, just give me my money back.’ The farmer
said, ‘I can’t do that. I went and spent it already.’
Helen said, ‘OK then, just unload the donkey anyway.’ The farmer
asked, ‘What are ya gonna do with him?’
Helen said, ‘I’m going to raffle him off.’ The farmer exclaimed, ‘You
can’t raffle off a dead donkey!’
But Helen, with a big smile on her face, said ‘Sure I can. Watch me. I
just won’t tell anybody that he’s dead.’
A month later the farmer met up with Helen and asked, ‘What happened with
that dead donkey?’
Helen said, ‘I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece
and made a profit of $798.00.’
Totally amazed, the farmer asked, ‘Didn’t anyone complain that you had
stolen their money because you lied about the
donkey being dead?’
Helen replied, ‘The only guy who found out about the donkey being dead was
the raffle winner, when he came to claim his
prize. So I gave him his $2 back plus $200 extra, which is double the
going value of a donkey, so he thought I was a really
great girl.’
Helen grew up and eventually became the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and
no matter how many times she lied or how
much money she stole from Kiwi voters, as long as she gave them back
some of the stolen money, most of them thought
she was a great person.