MISSING THE OBVIOUS
Jackie Gleason told a story of a man who would ride his little blue bicycle through a customs check point. Every day at the same time he rode up. Every time his bicycle basket held three jars: one filled with sand, one filled with water, and one filled with nuts and bolts. The customs agents were suspicious that this man was smuggling, so they would often open up the jars — but the sand was just sand, the water was just water, the nuts and bolts were just nuts and bolts. Sometimes they would frisk the man himself, and on a few occasions they even took the bicycle itself apart. No contraband was ever found. Yet since this man came through their checkpoint every single day, and no one ever saw him riding back, they just knew he had to be smuggling something. Several years later one of the customs agents stopped the man on the little blue bicycle and said:…
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