Crow dropped by for a quick visit earlier today and told me about the first capitalist so I did a quick (and lazy) sketch to go along with the other story from his archives.Imagine if you will a time long ago, an island filled with coconut trees, a veritable tropical paradise for all the happy monkey families who lived there. Although their diet mostly consisted of delicious coconuts, sometimes they went fishing or looked for berries just to add a little variety to their meals.
One day an odd monkey - one who had never fitted in very well with the tribe - decided to guard a particular coconut tree and charge the other monkeys a fee of a fish, or an oyster, or a handful of berries for the privilege of climbing the tree to harvest a coconut. The other monkeys laughed and ran off to get their coconuts elsewhere.
That night, while the other monkeys were asleep, the strange monkey fashioned an axe and chopped down every coconut tree except for the one he had chosen to guard. He gathered all the fallen coconuts into a pile near that last coconut tree and waited for the others to awaken.
I won't tell you the rest as it's a story you already know.
☀
How the story should end: all the other monkeys banded together and charged this stupid individual and threw his axe into the sea. Then they divided the remaining coconuts between everyone and planted some trees. They knew they would have to wait awhile for the trees to grow so they used their remaining coconuts wisely. They made the idiot who chopped down the trees go fishing for everyone every day for his repentance. The end.
ReplyDeletesomehow I doubt that was the ending you referred to :)
Yes, I know that story but I like Liberality's ending!
ReplyDeleteliberality - Absolutely, positively a wonderful end to that story. I loved it!
ReplyDeletemarja-leena - Me too :-)
I would love it if Liberality was right. Sadly the other monkeys on the island, having lost their livelihood ended up working for him for three peanuts a day... that is until he fired them after he cut down the last tree and outsourced coconut production to a poorer island where he paid the workers a peanut a week
ReplyDeleteThe monkey gace all the ill gotten money he made to me. I paid him a little. He went for that because I promised him I wouldn't hire anyone else at a higher wage.
ReplyDeleteAfter he sold all the coconuts, I laid him off and left that island for a place that had bananas. I hired another monkey.......
Just kiddin' I'd never do that. That's why I am a poor man and never made much money when I was in business.
So, I guess I should remember how this ends, but I don't.
Peace.
Liberality uses facts not in evidence. Modern button down I-pod monkeys have no history of using their remaining coconuts wisely. And I would guess these ancestoral monkeys did not either.
ReplyDeleteLet's go with Liberality's ending! It's much more humane.
ReplyDeleteI see this is a place where property rights aren't respected. Hmph!
ReplyDeletejams - Sad but very, very true. Would it were otherwise.
ReplyDeletespadoman - It seems all it takes to screw things up for everybody is a small percentage of bad monkeys.
mrmacrum - Then they tried selling each other rocks that only looked like coconuts.
lisa - I'd vote for Liberality's ending too but I'd also prefer voting for her in the next election rather than more bad monkeys.
randal - Only in anarchy is there still some hope :-)
Bad monkey!!!!!! The rest of the monkeys out to tell the monkey where to stick his coconuts.
ReplyDeletebelette - They would have been better off moving to another island altogether and leaving him alone with his rotting coconuts.
ReplyDeletethen one of the monkeys discovered that he could fasten 2 coconut halves with a piece of string and make a body covering for the female monkeys, as their nakedness bothered him.
ReplyDeletegfid - And there's the inspiration for a whole new story :-)
ReplyDelete