(From my book "Fishducky's Fables".)
There
once lived a man called Diogenes who lived in a barrel because housing in ancient Greece was very expensive. He walked around carrying a lantern, even
when the sun was shining brightly. He
took this lantern everywhere he went; up and down streets, into buildings of
all sorts, to the beach (although when he went into the water he had to leave
it next to his towel, because you know you can’t keep a lantern lit in the
water) and on cruise ships. He tried to
take it in an airplane, but the TSA confiscated it. It went with him to restaurants and parties,
even though it would occasionally set off a smoke alarm. He did
snuff out the flame when he went to bed, though, because everyone knows that
it’s not safe to go to sleep with a fire near the curtains.
The
reason he carried the lantern was that he was on a search. He was very
honest and he was looking for an honest phone company. Regardless of what their ads claimed, he
ended up disappointed. Time Warner had a
lot of static in their system. Sprint
would often cut him off in the middle of an important call. He had billing issues with AT&T, and he
couldn’t even get a live person to discuss them with. Verizon, Comcast and US Cellular were no
better. He would switch from company to
company, to no avail.
He
went to the law offices of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe to see if they could help
him. They took his case and a lot of
money and made him many promises, but never came through. He petitioned Congress and although they
eagerly accepted his contributions there was no help to be found there, either.
What
was he to do in order to communicate with others? The mail took forever. Smoke signals were frowned upon by the EPA. Semaphore flags couldn’t be seen from very
far without binoculars and they hadn’t been invented yet. There was a limit to how loudly he could
yell! He had no answer.
It
saddens me to tell you that he was forced to discontinue his search. He ran out of money and needed to earn a
living. He started his own phone company
but soon found that honesty wouldn’t get a person very far in that business and
he quickly went bankrupt. He searched
the want ads, but the only position he could find that he was even remotely
qualified for was as a used car salesman.
He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be a success in that field.
He
then had a flash of brilliance! He wrote
a book, coauthored by Mother Goose, which became a best seller and started him
on a successful career as an author.
Perhaps you’ve read it. It was
called “Honest Phone Companies and Other Fairy Tales”.
On a different subject, I just finished a book by my blogging buddy, Carol Wyer.
If you like mysteries, it's a must read!!
Right now it's only 99 cents on Amazon.
Buy it!!
Read it!!
You'll thank me!!
