The Tortoise and the Hare

Once upon a time there was a hare. He was a fine hare from a very rich and noble family. His name was General C. Ford, III but everyone just called him Big Three. Big Three could run faster than any other animal in all the forest. One day a small tortoise, named Tony Hondashibi showed up from the far away land of Japan, claiming that he could outrun Big Three in a race. Big Three challenged Tony to race with the winner sharing a huge banquet with his friends. The news of the challenge spread far and wide and soon the king of the forest, King Odamya, had heard about the race. King Odamya was concerned that the race may not be fair so he appointed three commissioners (Lobby-Dee, Lobby-Do and Lobby-Dum, all the king’s friends seem to be a Lobby-ist of some kind) to form huge bureaucracies to write onerous and conflicting rules on how the race was to be run.

The day came for the race and the competitors were ready to start when it was announced that there would be a two-hour delay, waiting for the arrival of the Lion King Odamya and his Lioness Queen Myhell. Since one of the rules that King Odamya had decreed was that each competitor was required to pull a wagon full of food and other provisions, the delay gave them extra time to double check their supplies and no one was really interested in the race anyway. In fact, there was almost no talk about the race at all, but focusing rather on the royal garb Queen Myhell was supposedly sporting that day. Finally, the royal couple arrived, made their way through the adoring throngs (otherwise known as the forest press) and arrived at the wagons on the starting line. The king asked the Lobby-ists to load copies of their freshly written regulations (which nobody had read yet) onto each of the wagons. Unfortunately, neither Big Three nor Tony had counted on having to carry the extra weight and when the King said, “Go,” each found his wagon to heavy to pull. Now everyone knows the warthog to be the strongest animal in the forest and before long both Big Three and Tony had enlisted the help of enough of them to finally get the wagons moving.

The race was going along fine, except for the fact that the extra rules and regulations had made a race, meant for a few hours, drag on for days. Suddenly Big Three felt his wagon get heavier and heavier. Finally, he looked back to find that the warthogs he had hired to help pull the wagon were, instead, riding in it. He demanded that they get out and help pull only to be informed that his workers had joined the United Arrogant Warthogs organization and UAW rules dictated when they worked and when they rode. He threatened to fire them until he found out that the king would disqualify him if he did. Wanting to do his patriotic duty, he trudged on under the extra load, hiring ever more warthogs to take up the slack. Tony, however, avoided hiring hogs from the UAW whenever possible and soon found himself pulling way ahead of the once proud hare.

Then one day members from the “See, I’m an Airhead” Club noticed that there were deep ruts from the wagons running through the forest. They complained to the king who sent the head of the Extra Pomp Agency to alert Big Three and Tony of a new rule. Both competitors would have to race with one hand tied behind his back. EPA studies had shone that this could decrease the depth of the ruts by as much as 0.000000000001 percent. Neither Big Three nor Tony could understand how tying one hand behind their back had anything to do with ruts left by a wagon that King Odamya had ordered them to pull in the first place. But protesting King Odamya’s polices could get them accused of prejudice against lions, a charge that could stigmatize them for life, so they both hired extra warthogs and moved on.

Finally, when Tony had the finish line in sight, word came that Big Three had broken down and could not continue without help. The warthogs from the UAW had eaten all the supplies and their combined weight had caused the collapse of Big Three’s wagon. The king had tapped out his credit line from his Panda bankers to help Big Three and now was ordering Tony to share some of his provisions to aid in the rescue. The Lobby-sists sent by the king made off with half of Tony’s supplies but by the time they got to Big Three, he had starved to death, leaving only his idle warthogs. Much to their relief, the Lobby-ists used the supplies to get the warthogs across the finish line, ahead of Tony. The warthogs were declared the winners and as the promised banquet started, everyone thought that the warthogs would share with them but to their utter shock and amazement, the warthogs made absolute pigs of themselves, leaving nothing for anyone else.

Now I wish this story had a happy ending but the reckless feasting by the warthogs left a famine in the land. Tony gave up and went back to Japan since he could see no point in continuing if there would be no reward and the king could change the rules and take whatever he wanted. Even the panda bankers went home to China leaving King Odamya with no choice but to begin eating the warthogs. Even the warthogs began starving and as they got thinner, the king had to eat more of them until one day, even the warthogs were gone. Now King Odamya only wanted to make the race fair and ensure the underprivileged warthogs got what they deserved, but sadly, here he sits hungry and starving, with nothing to show for his efforts.

P. S. You may be wondering why someone would take what should have been a simple story and make it so complex and convoluted. Frankly, I have been wondering the same thing!