Who's Smart Now?

A boy named Johnny hung out in front of the local grocery store in a small town. The manager noticed that the other boys who hung out in front of the store always teased him, calling him stupid and playing tricks on him. Johnny didn’t seem to mind, and always looked a little surprised.

One of their tricks was to offer Johnny his choice between a shiny nickel, worth 5 cents, and a dusty old dime, worth 10 cents. Johnny always took the nickel because it was bigger and shinier.

One day the store manager took Johnny off to one side. “Look son, those boys are making fun of you. They think you don’t know the dime is worth more than the nickel. Don’t you know that?”

“Yeah,” Johnny said, “but if I took the dime, they’d quit doing it!”