Kimsop’s Fable – Updated!

UPDATE: Okay, so I should’ve put a little more detail about when this whole contest thing might end so that you would stop putting off posting your hilarity. The official Kimsop Contest (you have no idea how badly I wanted to write Kontest just to make you cringe) will end on Tuesday at 5:00pm. Also, multiple entries will be accepted. Entries must be posted to the site by then, so hurry up kiddos!

Here’s how this will work. I will share a fable and then you will submit your moral of the story in the comments section. Whoever provides my favorite moral will win a prize. A prize that I will purchase and send in the mail (or perhaps just buy on the interwebs and send it directly to you, because you know how I like to promise about putting things in the mail, right?)

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Six fig trees were in charge of handing out special seeds, called umes, as the blades of grass came and asked for them. Umes produced amazing golden colored bushes and everybody wanted to enjoy the sweetness under their leaves.

Sometimes the fig trees would give out many umes and sometimes just a few, depending on why the grass needed them and what they were planning to do in the future. Some of the fig trees were very good at knowing just the right amount of umes and some struggled to figure out the proper way to do it, but they were never very bad about handing them out. Never enough for the sun to get mad and make them stop handing out the umes. And so the grass came, everyday to the fig trees.

There was also one olive tree who didn’t spend too much time with the grass, but worked more with the soil. She was peaceable and calm and she was almost always right. When the soil came and asked for umes she was careful to make sure that the grass and the soil were not working to plant too many umes too close together. It made the sun beat down in anger and the water angrily dry up when they had to work so hard to keep the golden bushes alive when they were so close together. To avoid the anger of the sun and the water, and instead of trying to talk to all of the blades of grass, the olive tree would talk to the six fig trees.

This worked very well, most of the time.

One fig tree, Figal, had great difficulty getting back to the olive tree. She would forget or she would ignore the olive tree all together, making the soil wait and wonder why they did not know how to properly plan their garden yet. It was quite a problem and finally, the olive tree was forced to talk loud enough so that the old oak tree could over hear. The oak tree liked things done properly and usually made sure that harmony was ruling among the trees and the grass. Though he didn’t care much about the soil, he did care about the umes and he knew the sun and water cared a lot about the umes too, which is why he would listen when the olive tree spoke loudly.

Whenever Figal realized that the oak tree was listening, she would get back to the olive tree, right away, but not necessarily with very much accuracy. Figal had been working in the ume world for much longer than the olive tree, but she somehow still could not understand how it all worked. Instead of admitting that she was confused, she would get angry and demand that her arbitrary rules of ume giving be followed, which made the grass, the olive tree and even the other fig trees put little seeds of bitterness all around them. If they questioned why Figal’s decision was so, her anger would rise high enough, that sometimes, she would leave actually the garden during the heat of the day or sometimes she would just play solitaire and ignore everyone all together.

One day, when the olive tree was speaking very loudly Figal said to not give out any umes to the soil that was asking. Not one ume. Her anger had already begun to rise about how loud the olive tree was talking because she hated that the oak tree could hear. Glad that she at least wasn’t being ignored, the olive tree accepted the answer.

“Sorry, soil, but you’ll have to do without,” said the olive tree, her branch extended anyway.

“But the grass in our garden didn’t get any umes from Figal at all! Can’t we have some cool shade under a beautiful golden bush?” the soil asked, exasperated.

The olive tree sighed heavily and said she would see why Figal had said ‘no.’ Sometimes, the soil was not very honest about how their garden was coming along and they already had a few umes tucked away in the earth, just waiting to blossom. Maybe Figal knew something of that.

“Figal, did you give any of the grass some umes for this soil?” the olive tree inquired.

“That doesn’t sound familiar to me. I don’t think I have.” Figal was being sheepish and the olive tree’s branches were not extended. She was wondering why the oak tree did not believe this to be a reason to release Figal from ume giving, why the sun couldn’t not see that the umes were not kept orderly in her baskets, why the grass didn’t complain more and why Figal didn’t find another garden she liked better in which to spend her days. “I guess I just forgot the rules,” she finally shrugged.

The olive tree recoiled her boughs and, at first, let off a few leaves, but then, realizing the futility of it all, extended her branches to Figal. The olive tree went back to the soil and explained that there had been some confusion and a mistake. Then, she handed out the exact number of umes the soil wanted.

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