A man was waiting at an intersection for a circus to pass by...

He saw a sign on one of the wagons that read:
"Barney's Circus with Fifty Elephants."
He counted the elephants as they crossed the intersection. When he got to fifty, he put his car in gear and started to cross the intersection because he was late for an appointment.
Unfortunately, he had miscounted and his car hit and killed the last elephant.
A week later he got a notice from the circus that he'd have to pay $200,000. He called the circus manager and inquired, "What's the deal? I only killed one lousy elephant! Why do you want $200,000?"
The manager responded, "It's true, you only killed one elephant, but you pulled the tails out of forty-nine others!"