Once upon a time, there was a tree. I repeat: there was a tree. Yes, once upon a time, there was a tree.
Now that we have made that very clear, we can continue the story.
Inside of this tree there lived an ape. This ape, however, was not just any old ape. He was not a run-of-the-mill type of ape. Oh, no! He was a super-special, high-maintenance, intelligence-enhanced ape. In fact, this ape was so human that he was very nearly non-ape.
The ape with which we are concerned called himself Baboon. His real name was Alexandre Reynolds Machiavelli IV, but he called himself Baboon. To this day, it is not known why. Perhaps he had a deep, lasting resentment towards the three Alexandre Reynolds Machiavellis that preceded him. But whatever the reason, this ape did indeed call himself Baboon.
Baboon, as I have said before, was a Special ape. He was an Intelligent ape that always used his thinking skills. For instance, he used to carry a digital alarm clock in his pocket so that he would always know just when it was time to wind his watch. Imagine- if Baboon had not done so, he never would have been punctual. Yes, Baboon was smarter than the average ape.
But one day, something happened that unsettled even the most Intelligent and Respected of apes. One day, a man came walking down the path that led from the nearby town. He walked straight towards Baboon’s little corner of the forest, and stationed himself directly under Baboon’s little tree.
This man was not merely an ape that was so smart that he was nearly a man. This man was also not a young woman dressed up as a man in order to go to war in her father’s place to save her father from dying a terrible and dishonorable death. This man was a real, true, genuine man with no disguises or ulterior motives.
This man was also a Woodcutter.
Baboon hated Woodcutters above all things. There was nothing worse than having a Woodcutter come by and gaze longingly at his tree. There was nothing in the world that Baboon disliked more than Woodcutters. Except maybe Fire. And Beavers, definitely Beavers. But Woodcutters were very, very high on his list. When Baboon saw this particular Woodcutter gazing longingly at his tree, he got very angry. Baboon huffed and he puffed, and then he decided to play a Dirty-Rotten trick on the Woodcutter. He decided to kidnap the Woodcutter and keep him as a slave. The slave could work the dishwasher that Baboon would force him to invent, and then Baboon would never have to do any more dishes.
So Baboon laid a Dirty-Rotten trap for the Woodcutter. Three days passed, and still the Woodcutter did not fall into Baboon’s trap. This made Baboon very angry. In order to solve his dilemma, Baboon kidnapped the Woodcutter from his little Woodcutter’s hut, forced him to fall into the trap, and then kept him as a slave. This seemed to fix things for awhile.
And yet Baboon was unfulfilled. He decided that having just one Woodcutter to do his dirty dishes was not enough. Baboon planned to launch a worldwide assault on Woodcutters everywhere. His main goal was to destroy Woodcutters, wiping them from the face of the earth. That was the only true way to keep his tree safe and sound. It would be easy to deal with Beavers and Fires if only the Woodcutters were out of the picture. So Baboon begin to formulate his plan.
After months of careful calculation, Baboon was certain that he had come up with the best plan imaginable. Baboon planned to knit a pair of socks. Into these socks, Baboon would knit a subliminal message that would tell the wearer to eat less meat. These socks he would give to the Head of a large logging corporation. The Head of the large logging corporation would subliminally receive the subliminal message to eat less meat, and would consequently (as well as subliminally) start to eat less meat. Once the Head of the large logging corporation was subliminally eating less meat, he would become restless and decide to fire some of his employees. Eventually, the whole logging corporation would go bankrupt. This plan made sense to Baboon, because he knew that subliminally eating less meat went hand-in-hand with appreciating nature, and nobody who appreciated nature would want to continue cutting down helpless trees. So Baboon began to put his plan into action.
Baboon began to knit the pair of socks that would set his entire scheme into motion. But knitting, as everybody knows, takes something that Baboons (even Smart, Intelligent Baboons) do not have: Genuine Thumbs. Baboon had somethings very near resembling Thumbs, but Baboon did not, in fact, have Genuine Thumbs. Even the somethings that he had were too short and stubby to be of any real use, at least when knitting. This presented a problem for Baboon.
Baboon, however, did not allow this problem to stop him from pursuing his scheme to knit a subliminal message that would tell the wearer of the socks to eat less meat. Baboon, to speak bluntly, had decided to modify his plan.
The first thing that Baboon did was to force his Woodcutter slave to knit a pair of socks. Baboon did not trust the Woodcutter to knit his subliminal message into the yarn, so Baboon (who really was a very Smart and Intelligent Baboon) decided just to stick the subliminal message to the inside of the socks with heavy-duty duct tape after they had been knitted. This appeared to solve his predicament.
The actual knitting of the socks took awhile, because the Woodcutter (being a Woodcutter and not a Knitter) did not have the slightest idea how to go about knitting a sock- much less a pair of socks. When the socks were finished, they were not actually a pair of socks at all. The word “pair” indicates that two particular socks belong with each other and resemble each other in some way; the socks that the Woodcutter had knitted, however, looked disconcertingly like bowling ball bags.
Again, it was time for Baboon to modify his plan.
Baboon decided to launch a worldwide attack on Woodcutters using bowling ball bags. He would have his slave knit a pair of bowling ball bags, which bowling ball bags he would give to the Head of a large logging corporation. This Head of a large logging corporation would naturally go bowling, and so receive the subliminal message through his bowling ball. If the Head did not like to bowl, the next obvious thing for him to do with a bowling ball bag would be to wear it on his head, which would cause the subliminal message to seep through his hair and into his logging brain. This would also accomplish Baboon’s purpose.
So Baboon sent the knitted pair of bowling ball bags to the nearest Head of a large logging corporation and awaited his success. Baboon waited for days, weeks, months. Near the end of the first year, Baboon received word that the Head had mistaken the bowling ball bags for coffee filters and, since he did not drink coffee, had given them away to the Head of the large goat cheese factory nearby. This news distressed and angered Baboon.
A new course of action was clearly needed. This time, there was only one thing to do: Baboon clearly had no other choice but to kidnap the daughter of the Head of the large logging corporation and force her to punch the tiny little straws into all of his Capri Sun packets until her father agreed to fire all of his employees. Then, and only then, would Baboon’s tree be safe. After the danger to his tree was past, he would consider releasing his captive.
Unfortunately, this marvelous plan was also destined for failure. The Head’s daughter had apparently run off with one of the employees of the old goat cheese factory, shortly after he had been mysteriously laid off (along with all of the other goat cheese workers). This presented another difficult problem for Baboon. Baboon knew that there was only one way for him to make sure that no Woodcutter would ever chop down his tree. Sending his slave into the forest to wash dishes, Baboon sat down by himself to think about this new plan. It was a dangerous plan, but it must be done. Baboon would cut down the tree himself. With great resolve and courage, Baboon set to work.
When the Woodcutter returned, he discovered Baboon underneath what remained of the tree. Actually (to be more precise), the Woodcutter discovered, pinned under the tree, what remained of Baboon. Baboon had made a slight error of judgment while chopping, and was laying, happily flattened, underneath the fallen trunk of his beloved tree.
The Woodcutter was delighted at finding himself free, and carried the dishwasher that he had invented for Baboon back to his home in the village. There he lived, happily ever after, washing dishes, knitting, and working for the Head of the large logging corporation.
Baboon has never been heard from again, but it is rumored that his watch and alarm clock were both eaten by some wild goats that had begun to turn up soon after the goat cheese factory had closed.
The moral of this story is: “Never Believe A Very True Story.”
