the ant & the grasshopper

[edible complex]

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!


MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.'

Rev. Jeremiah Wright then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ants food while the government househe is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

[LauraMc]

This story goes right along with what I heard is our new business model at work. Apparently, some yahoo made a video about how Southwest, IKEA and a few others surveyed their customers and convenience and price was at the top of their list and quality was low-rated (more proof that you can make a study say anything you want it too). So the new thing is to produce more, don't worry about quality. I actually heard a supervisor tell an employee who was concerned that the work she was doing was incorrect and needed to be updated. She was told not to worry about it, just get the project done and they would worry about fixing it in a few years. (Like that's gonna happen.):covri:

[Oyster]

LOL! Great American story there!

...but why did they have to chose an ant that lives in NOLA?

What??? It is happening throughout our country??? I think the ants will build two houses for the upcoming winter!

[edible complex]

I actually heard a supervisor tell an employee who was concerned that the work she was doing was incorrect and needed to be updated. She was told not to worry about it, just get the project done and they would worry about fixing it in a few years. (Like that's gonna happen.):covri:

I always say if you don't have time to do it right the first time, then how are you going to have time to fix it later.

---------- Post added at 08:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:15 AM ----------

...but why did they have to chose an ant that lives in NOLA?

if it was in NOLA, we'd have a gang of flying killer cockroaches and termites in the story.

[Schuarta]

Great stories.

The next time the ant will think about it more thoroughly, and have a big stock of .223 put away as well.

[Alex]

Great stories.

The next time the ant will think about it more thoroughly, and have a big stock of .223 put away as well.

Yep