The Ranting Rat
A rat ran around telling everyone that signs were everywhere, and that they better read them signs.
"Sign sign, everywhere a sign!" he'd protest. "You better read that sign!"
The other animals avoided the rat. He was a pain in the ass. His only friend was a skanky opossum, and they struck a defensive posture when they walked around together.
"Blockin' the scenery, breakin' my mind, everywhere a sign!"
He screamed furiously up at an owl. "Imagine-me workin' for you!" he pulled off his cap and revealed unkempt fur that was much longer than most country rodents'.
The owl said, "I thought you READ the sign."
"Do this don't do that . . . better read the s-i-g-n!" both he and the opossum said together, walking away angrily. They saw a "No Trespassing" sign and the opossum shook his fist. The rat just smiled as they went past it.
All the signs in the world were telling him what to do and where to go and he didn't like it. The other animals, they didn't see anything wrong, either. They just did what the sign said.
The rat felt his blood pressure rise as he contemplated the whole authoritarian trip. He thought it was all crap. He wrote and sold a song about his views on it and made a little money. The opossum went along with anything the rat said but didn't feel as strongly.
The semi-popular success of the song he wrote emboldened the rat to such a degree that he refused to read any sign, walking with his head down, up towards the top of a high mountain. But before reaching the top he was crushed by an avalanche of falling rocks that sign after sign on the road had warned about.
MORAL: Better read the sign.
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