A Dark and Stormy Night — and a Very Bad Idea

RAY: This puzzler was sent in with the requisite pre-obfuscation by a fellow named Jay McDermott. He says, "This will give you the chance to use, 'It was a dark and stormy night.'"

Pay attention: There are lots of clues, and lots of obfuscations and red herrings.

Here it is:

"It was a dark and stormy night. Out in my leaky old barn, I had removed the differential from my tractor and prepared to load it into the pickup truck.

I struggled to get the differential up to the tailgate, but without help, I was unable to lift it the last two feet off the roller cart.

Then I got a bright idea. I could use the two floor jacks, which were holding up the rear end of the tractor! But — what to put under the tractor to keep the rear end of it up in the air? Vainly, I searched for a block of wood, or anything I could use to hold up the tractor. I found only a hay bale on a shelf in the horse stall.

"Good enough," I said, and I dragged the bale under that beat up old tractor, and then I pulled the jacks out. It worked! And, not a moment too soon, because within minutes it became even darker and stormier, and by the time I finished, water was just about covering the entire floor of the barn. But, at least I was done.

Well, one thing lead to another…days went by and weeks went by... The differential stayed in the back of the pickup and the hay bale stayed under the tractor.

Then one night, the barn caught fire and burned to the ground.

My wife was ecstatic! She said, "I knew that was a bad idea."

The question is, what was a bad idea?

Think you know? Drop Ray a note!

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]