Once upon a time, there lived a fun grandmother called Tutu who enjoyed spending time with her darlin’ grandchildren. One day she bought a new children’s book called The Ant and the Grasshopper. She remembered this Aesop’s Fable from her childhood and knew the moral of the story: those who work and save will survive; those who are lazy will starve and freeze to death.
She read the new book to her grandchildren and almost threw up her soup when she got to the end. In the latest edition, the ant works all summer to store food while the lazy, able-bodied grasshopper plays the fiddle, but when winter comes the grasshopper moves in with the ant and shares the abundance of the ant’s labor. Tutu was sad that misguided political correctness was interfering with the original message of the story. She also noted that the book was published by Simon & Schuster, a huge corporation with more than 2 billion dollars in annual revenues. Why didn’t such a big and successful company give away the books for free? Maybe their readers didn’t want to work to earn money to buy the books. Didn’t S&S have an obligation to share and redistribute the products of their hard work?
Tutu then took her grandkids to see the new movie, The Lorax. They all enjoyed the music and animation, but the story had been altered from the original message of Dr. Seuss. The movie implied that all corporations were greedy and that the boss only wanted to destroy the planet and keep the profits. The boss’s own mother left him when he ran out of money, and she said she liked the other son better. Great message for the kids! Tutu knew that some corporations are bad, but not all. She was grateful that her jobs had provided a nice income and opportunities. She also wondered why Universal Studios, a multi-billion-dollar corporation, charged a fortune for tickets to see the movie. Why was it so expensive? After all, Tutu could have purchased a nice pair of shoes and a bottle of wine for what it cost to buy popcorn, drinks and tickets. Those evil, capitalistic movie theatres!
Tutu decided she would turn such events into teachable moments and tell her grandkids why it’s good to be industrious and self-sufficient. She also decided to continue helping handicapped and elderly grasshoppers, but no lazy, able-bodied grasshoppers could share the wine in her pantry. She had earned the right to make that decision. The End.
Today’s blog was fueled by a bottle of Menopause Merlot from Bitner Vineyards. The yummy flavors of loganberry and blueberry will make you forget all about those irritating, fiddling grasshoppers. It’s about $26 a bottle. Check www.bitnervineyards.com for locations.