Nov 3, 2004

An allegorical story.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Jimmy who had to choose between living with either Uncle Dan or Uncle Ralph. Each uncle got to talk to Jimmy before he decided in order to let him know how they would take care of him.

Uncle Dan said, "If you come live with me, Jimmy, I'll make sure you have a healthy diet, that you go to school every day and work hard, and learn, and how to get along with all your schoolmates, and we'll live a nice, happy life together as I teach you how to become a man."

Uncle Ralph said, "Uncle Dan's a fool! Come live with me and we'll party every day, eat ice cream for dinner, and you can watch TV all day and not have to go to school and learn anything, and we'll take all your friends toys, and if they don't like it they can kiss our butts!"

Jimmy thought (not very long) and said: "I wanna live with Uncle Ralph and we'll have a great time!"

And so Jimmy went with Uncle Ralph, and every day they partied and ate nothing but ice cream, and he watched TV all day and didn't go to school, and he made fun of all the other kids in the neighborhood and took their toys, and had just a grand old time.

Some time later, Uncle Ralph woke Jimmy up from his morning slumber, and Jimmy stirred in his pile of dirty clothes and lazily burped.

"Well, I have to go now. Good-bye!"

"No!" Jimmy cried. "I want to have fun!" He tried to run after Uncle Ralph but he was so fat he tired out, and when he called to other kids to try and stop him they all laughed. Jimmy tried to take care of himself but he didn't know how anything worked, and when he tried to think of a way to get him back he got bored because he never learned how to learn.

As Jimmy sat in his pigsty of a house, crying and lonely, there was a knock at the door. He waddled to open it, and there was Uncle Dan. Jimmy bawled and latched on to Uncle Dan's feet.

"Oh, Uncle Dan," Jimmy sobbed, "will you help me?"

Uncle Dan looked down and smiled.

"I always do."