If You Build It, They Will Come.

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Once upon a time there was a man who owned a china shop in lower Manhattan. In his shop, he had thousands and thousands of dollars worth of fine china that his family had been collecting and working on with a lot of pride for over 200 years, filled with silver, gold, glass, porcelain, crystal and priceless vases. One day a man (who we'll call George) entered the shop looking for a job. The shop owner reluctantly hired George because he needed help to run his shop.

George was a lazy employee, not really understanding how much work it took to run the china shop. His only job was to find and kill spiders that nest in the china. One fateful day, George left the door to the shop open and a bumblebee wandered in. George was allergic to bees, as was his father. He remembered the time a bee tried to sting his dad, which would've put his father in the hospital. George tells the shopowner that there's a bee in the store. The shopowner tells George to leave it alone and it will not harm anyone. George says that if one bee is here, soon there will be hundreds of bees and it will make the store and the customers unsafe. The shopowner still says that George should leave the bee alone. George says that bees attract spiders, and therefore he needed to try to kill the bee. The shopowner still says that George should leave the bee alone. George says that bees are mean. The shopowner finally agrees to let George kill the bee, even though he's really supposed to be looking for spiders. The shopowner points out the bug spray hidden under the counter. George promised to use just a little bug spray, and the shopowner went back into his office. George went behind the counter to grab the bug spray, but saw the baseball bat the shopowner used to scare away shoplifters hidden behind the counter. George decided to grab the bat instead. He ran through the store like a maniac and swung at the bee. He missed the bee but managed to smash a priceless crystal wine glass set. Unaffected he swung at the bee again, smashing more china. George swung and swung missing the bee everytime, but eventually destroying all the china the mans family had worked so hard to collect over 200 years.

At long last, George swung and clobbered the bee. As he lifted his bat he saw that the bee was not a bee at all, but was instead a harmless tiny fly. A fly that could not sting anyone, nor had any intention to.

The shop owner came out from his office, horrified by what George had done. When the shopowner asked for an explanation, George declared the bee killing mission a wonderful success. The shopowner, shocked and awed by the mass destruction around him, asked George how he could consider the mess in the store a success. The reputation his store had for being the best china shop in the tri-state area was now gone, the shattered porcelain and glass made it too dangerous to even walk in the store, and 200 years worth of pride was gone in an instant, as was the hundreds of thousands of dollars it was worth.

George looked around and said "What are you complaining about? Nothing is broken, everything is fine! And your store is a safer place without that bee." He then set down the bat and left the store, leaving all the clean up and debt to the poor store owner.

Then, for some unknown reason, the store owner didn't fire George, who has yet to catch a spider.

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