Monday, September 2, 2024
Column 670
Zack the monkey learns that reputations cannot be stolen
Once upon a time there was a monkey. His name was Zack. He was a dumb monkey but, he was not the president of a country.
Zack the monkey lived in Africa.
The other monkeys ate coconuts. They knew where to find them. They climbed trees to get them. They used rocks to crack them open so they could eat them. Sometimes they even played catch with them for fun. The other monkeys knew lots about coconuts.
But Zack knew nothing.
One day Zack got an idea. He decided to write a book about coconuts. He planned to call it Coconuts by Zack, make many clams, and laze away his days in a fancy home high in a shady tree.
Zack traveled around the jungle and asked the other monkeys what they knew. He wrote what they told him on palm fronds, made copies, and set up a shop in a clearing on the edge of a small pond where the other monkeys came to drink the cool water and wile away the day with their friends Petunia the pretty parrot and Harlan the hedgehog.
The first day Zack sold four of his books.
The next day he sold just two.
Sales continued to languish for days. Something was wrong and Zack began to worry. His dream of a cushy retirement was in jeopardy. Zack was surrounded by hundreds of his frond tomes but for some reason the monkeys weren’t buying.
Late one afternoon after the monkeys hopped on the vine highway and swung home for supper and just before nighttime enveloped the forest and Latrell the lion began to prowl, Zack approached Petunia and Harlan…
“Hey guys,” he asked, “by chance have the monkeys told you why they aren’t buying my book?”
“Why certainly,” replied Petunia the parrot, “They think its doody.”
Zack couldn’t believe his ears.
“That’s right mate,” said Harlan the hedgehog, “Your book is rubbish. You don’t know sod all about coconuts.” (Harlan was originally from Bournemouth.)
“But I asked the other monkeys!” offered an exasperated Zack. “What am I going to do? I worked hard and invested many clams.”
“Yo! Ax a frickin’ expert ta write da frickin’ book ya dumb frickin’ primate – and den ya jus’ might make som’ frickin’ clams!” roared Latrell the lion as he bounded from the adrenalin grass on the side of the clearing.
“Please don’t eat me!” pleaded Zack. “Just tell me what to do. I’ll pay!”
“Yo!” said Latrell, “da monkeys, dey’ll dig deep if da book don’t be cheap. Ya’ll jus a dumb monkey. Find ya ass a ‘telligent monkey dat actually know somethin’ ‘bout da coconuts. Get his monkey ass ta do da work. Toss the cat a clam and den keep mos’ da clams for ya own self.”
So, Zack travelled around the jungle again and found Moeshe.
Moeshe was one of the monkey elders. He was a real macher in the monkey community and highly respected. Once he had even been the jungle coconut cracking champion. All the monkeys looked up to Moeshe.
Zack offered Moeshe a deal. It seemed like a good deal. Moeshe agreed to write down all that he knew in return for one clam for every book that Zack might eventually sell.
For months, Moeshe slaved away. When he was finished, he gave his manuscript to Zack. Zack made copies and then set up his little shop again in the clearing. He priced the new book at twenty clams.
What a difference!
Whereas Coconuts by Zack was a dismal failure, sales of Coconuts by Moeshe took off immediately. Zack sold dozens of Moeshe’s book and dutifully paid him one clam each.
“What a smart monkey I am!” thought Zack, as he began to make plans for his tree-top retirement retreat.
But Moeshe was smarter. He was much smarter…
Moeshe began to wonder why he, the smart monkey who had all the knowledge and had done all the work, should receive just one clam for each of his books while Zack the dumb monkey pocketed nineteen clams. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t right!
So, Moeshe went back to work and wrote an entirely new book.
He made copies, set up his own little shop in the clearing right next to Zack’s stand, and began to sell his new book. He called it Kibitzing about Coconuts with Moeshe and he priced it at thirty clams, fifty percent more than the book Zack was hawking.
The monkeys and even many of the other animals swarmed Moshe’s shop, ignoring Zack right next door, and in just days Moeshe’s first printing sold out. Moeshe reprinted, again and again.
The rest is history…
Moeshe the smart monkey who knew everything about coconuts lives a life of luxury with Petunia the pretty parrot in a lavish home atop the tallest tree in the forest.
Zack the dumb monkey who knew nothing about coconuts spent years trying to recover his investment in the stock of his own book and Moeshe’s first book but failed miserably. He briefly rented a flat in the crook of a tree from Harlan the hedgehog. In the end he was eaten by Latrell the lion – a fate he deserved.
The moral (all fables must have one): coconuts, darts, dart tournaments – as with all things in life, there are experts and there are posers but, try as one might, reputations cannot be stolen.
From the Field,
Dartoid
