The ‘Truth Is Relative’ Story

Johnny Absolute was driving to work one day and came to a stop at a four-way stop. He stopped, then proceeded from the stop sign, when a person ran through the adjacent stop sign without stopping and destroyed John’s car.

John jumped from the car and said, “What were you thinking? You just ran a stop sign!”

The man innocently answered, “What do you mean?”

John responded, pointing to the sign, “The stop sign! What were you thinking?”

The man scratched his head, “Oh, I get it! Here’s the confusion. To me, a stop sign means, ‘Keep going, pal, you’re doing great!’”

John shook his head, called the police from his mobile phone and waited. After some time, the policeman arrived, took a statement from each driver, and filled out his report. The policeman then went over to John’s car. John rolled down his window.

“I just gave that man a citation for failure to yield at a stop sign.” John thought to himself, “About time some justice was done about this!” But then the policeman continued, “According to other man, you stopped at the stop sign before going, and according to the arbitrary laws of the City of Relativeville, a stop sign can mean different things to different people. I am citing you for failing to ‘keep going, pal, you’re doing great.’ You should have never stopped at that stop sign.”

About an hour later, John, still very angry over the situation, called his automobile insurance company, Relative Truth Property and Casualty, to call in his accident. After giving his statement, the person on the other end of the telephone said to John, “Mr. Absolute? It seems that your policy expired in September 2005.”

John yelled into the telephone, “What? Listen, today is March 30, 2005, I still have plenty of time left!”

The person answered on the other end of the telephone, “Well, to us, 2005 was last year. We’ll send you a letter denying your claim. Have a nice day, sir.” Click.

John, of course, needed a new car, and went to the bank, Relativity Savings and Loan, to arrange the money he had saved to buy a car. When he gave in his forms to the banker, he said to John, “It seems you have 50,000 cents in your account, Mr. Absolute. You do not have enough for such a withdrawal.”

John answered, “You listen here! It says here, clear as crystal, that I have 50,000 dollars in my account. Now I want my money!”

The banker answered, after looking awhile on the statement, “Oh, I see. That symbol ‘s’ with the vertical line through it: it means ‘cents’ to us, not ‘dollars’.”

John retorted, “I want all my money out of this place! Now!”

The banker, after John filled out all of the proper forms, gave him his money in full: a brand-new, crisp one-dollar bill.