Jedediah has a team of prize-winning mules, but due to financial problems, he can no longer keep them, so he decides to sell them to Luke, who has a farm down the road a piece and needs a couple of mules. Luke sez to Jedediah that he needs "working" mules, and can't just keep them because they're a couple of pretty faces. Jedediah assures him that they are hard workers and work willingly, but, "They are a bit sensitive, so you need to be gentle and polite with them. They don't respond well to the usual kind of muleskinner language."

So Luke takes the mules off Jedediah's hands. The following morning, he takes them out to the field and hitches them up to the plow. He walks around in front of them and, bowing politely, in his best courtly manner, he requests, "Will you pull the plow, please?" They just stand there. Luke repeats his request. Nothing. Several more attempts produce the same result. The two prize-winning mules seem to be unaware that he is even there. In anger and exasperation, he steams off down the road to Jedediah's farm and tells him that the damned mules are bloody useless. "No problem," sez Jedediah. They hop into Jedediah's truck and drive to Luke's farm, where the two mules are standing motionless in the field.

Jedediah walks over to a pile of scrap lumber that Luke has laying behind the barn, picks up a four-foot length of 2x4, walks over to the mules, and whops each one of them across the nose with the 2x4, practically knocking them to their knees. Their eyes are wide, their ears are up, and they suddenly look very alert. Jedediah bows politely before the two mules and sez, "Will you pull the plow, please?" They take right off, pulling the plow with great vigor and enthusiasm.

"Jumpin' Jehoshophat!" sez Luke. "I thought you said that I needed to be gentle and polite with them!"

"Well, yeah," sez Jedediah. "But first you have to get their attention."

Don Firth