Thursday, November 3, 2011

Sammy's Bedtime Story Last Night, or I Need to Drop Out of my MBA

"Once upon a time, there was a King in a far away land named Sammy.  He was a smart and powerful king who ruled over a little village that was plagued by the presence of a giant and hungry dragon.

"Every day, the dragon would come down from his dragon cave and eat 15 of the villagers.  This was very concerning to the villagers because there was a limited and dwindling number of villagers.  So they asked their king to figure out something to do about the dragon.

"First, King Sammy thought that he could appease the dragon.  So he sent 30 villagers up the hill as a sacrifice.  The dragon seemed very happy to eat them, but came down the next day to gather up 15 more.

"Then King Sammy thought that perhaps the Dragon could be reasoned with.  So he sent 40 of his top diplomats to the cave to plead with the dragon to stop eating the villagers.  But the dragon promptly ate them and the next day came back for more.

"Then King Sammy thought that perhaps the cave could be walled up and the dragon sealed inside.  So he sent 50 of his best engineers to construct an enclosure around the cave.  But before they could lay a sufficient foundation, the dragon ate all the engineers and the next day came back for more.

"Then King Sammy thought that perhaps he could storm the cave and kill the dragon.  So he sent 100 of his strongest warriors to attack the dragon.  But when they entered the cave, the dragon crushed them all and ate what was left of them, and the next day came back for more.

"Then King Sammy was fed up.  He hadn't been able to come to a solution to the problem through any logical means, and the dragon had almost eaten all his villagers.  He asked the remaining farmers how many cows they had and found out that they could spare about 15 cows per day on a renewable basis, especially with the reduced population.  So he went up to the cave himself, thinking the energy the dragon would use to eat one person wouldn't equal the calories gained by eating said person.  He asked the dragon, 'What if we were to provide you with 5 cows per day?  Would you be satisfied and not eat any more of our villagers?'

"The dragon responded, '5 cows?  You must be joking!'

"And the brilliant King Sammy answered, 'Certainly not, especially considering you eat 15 people a day, and the average cow is approximately worth three people in body weight'.

"'I'll take no less than 10 cows per day'.

"And the shrewd King Sammy found that to be ridiculous, saying, 'You'll get no more than 8 - this gives you an extra 9 people's worth of meat per day, increasing your daily meat intake by more than 50%'.

"The dragon thought for a minute and finally agreed to the terms of the agreement.  No more villagers were lost to the dragon, the deal was settled for less than budgeted by the farmers, and the dragon got to eat (in essence) 9 more people per day.  And everyone lived happily ever after.

"The End."

4 comments:

  1. ZZzzzzzzz . . . sorry, that was . . . ZZZZZZZ

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  2. What makes me angry is that I kept nodding along with the story thinking "yup, that makes sense".

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  3. Holy moly, Sammy is going to be the smartest preschooler ever ;)

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  4. Bill, I can tell right off that you and your family do not practice the Hindu religion. Sending 8 cows up that hill every day to be eaten by that dragon with the high cholesterol can not be a good thing for the cows, King Sammy, or the dragon either. I do like the logic behind all this though. You will make a great MBA.

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