Story Of The Day

Every night a man who had worked at a factory for twenty years would push a wheelbarrow full of straw to the guard at the gate. The guard would look through the straw, and find nothing and pass the man through.

On the day of his retirement the man came to the guard as usual but without the wheelbarrow. Having become friends over the years, the guard asked him, "Charlie, I've seen you walk out of here every night for twenty years. I know you've been stealing something. Now that you're retired, tell me what it is and how you've been doing it."

Charlie simply smiled and replied, "Wheelbarrows."

This is another one of these stories tht goes around. Any story can be used for any point. This is well suited for the point of missing the point, being misdirected by what's in front of our nose at the same time that we miss what's right under our nose.

Snopes (which you can access by clicking on the title) provides everything you ever wanted to know about the various versions of this tale.