On the hill, was built a city. It was called the city of Do on the hill.
Walls were built around the city to keep people out or to keep people in. It was never clear which.
Inside the walls of the city, a factory of doing was built. It took a fair amount of people to do that feat of building a factory inside the walls of the city but for that matter, it took a fair amount of doing to build the wall itself.
Inside the walls of the city, the efficient factory was humming along doing its thing and producing all sorts of useful things. Pretty soon it got crowded inside the walls of the city with all of the efficient doing and factoring going on and so it was decreed by the king that merchandisers would be allowed to leave the city walls and start advertising their useful things in the suburbs that were forming around the city of Do on the hill.
The merchandisers were very happy to be allowed outside the city walls since it was boring and stifling inside the city. The suburbanites were very excited about the useful things being advertised and the merchandisers were happy advertising.
At first, that is, until the novelty wore off and they realized they were a bit frustrated to only be allowed to advertise when what they really wanted to do was actually sell things, not just advertise. They realized what they really needed was some money.
Advertising was all well and good but really, what was the point of getting everybody all excited if nothing was going to happen afterwards? And the merchandisers were beginning to get tired of getting pelted with tomatoes after the suburbanites realized that they would not be able to buy any of the useful things being advertised because of that lack of money. So off the merchandisers went, ascending the hill and making an appointment to speak with the king about inventing some coins and money.
They waited and waited and waited and waited and finally the day of their appointment to meet with the king arrived. They got all dressed in their finest clothes and perfumed themselves up good to cover up the stench that had developed from all of the descending and ascending the hill to Do they had done when they had been advertising to the suburbanites. What a lot of work for nothing but a lot of sweat.
At last the merchandisers had arrived at the appointed time and the appointed place and they paraded in to see the king only to find that the king was late getting back from his pedicure.
After lots more waiting, the king eventually swaggered in sporting some mighty fine toenails as evidenced by all the attention the advertising merchandisers were devoting to the superiority of the miniature artworks displayed on his feet.
They have never seen anything finer and wouldn’t the king like to invest in some new factories for making round metal things with pictures of the king’s new toenails? Being advertising merchandisers, they are good at coining words and so they decide the king should coin coins.
The king likes the new word. It sounds kind of bouncy. Coin, coin, coin. Almost like boing, boing, boing. He suggests that maybe it should be coings. What happened to the G at the end? G is for big things and this new idea about coins and money seems like it might take off and be big. Cooler heads prevail and the king is convinced that it is a good idea to leave off the G to keep it a secret. No point giving anyone ideas or for that matter, better not give anyone anything now that there are going to be coins. Coins will be all the rage and now everything will have value since everything can now be bought.
The advertising merchandisers are pleased and the king shoes them out so he can start the process of making money but first he must invent some bankers so those advertising merchandisers don’t get the upper hand with this coin business.
The advertising merchandisers decide to go visit the suburbanites yet again to tell them about the new word coin. They are prepared with their shields because they have gotten wise to the usual tomato assault. Surprise, surprise when the suburbanites tell them they have decided not to waste tomatoes on them anymore since they have decided that tomatoes will have value now that there are going to be coins and by the by, they already know about the coins since the king’s finely manicured toenails have embedded listening devices that have transmitted everything to the suburbanites in real time. It is fine to have a token king but it is important not to let him have too much power or who knows what sort of trouble he would get into.
So the suburbanites are making plans and they have not told the advertising merchandisers about the king’s plan to invent some bankers. That would not be good. The suburbanites do not trust the advertising merchandisers, the king and especially the as of yet, uninvented bankers.
So much for all the secrecy, the bankers decide that now is the time to come out of hiding and reinvent themselves before the king has a chance to invent them in a way not to their liking.
How do the bankers know that now is the time? Because of course, they were the ones who loaned the favors to the manicurists so they could get hold of the listening devices to attach to the king’s toes. In return for the capital for the toe candy, the bankers receive a 50% favor return on the information gathered by the listening devices.
Meanwhile, while everyone thinks they know what is going on that is supposed to be secret, the king decides to have a nice long soak in his hot tub and when he gets out, he realizes that his fancy toenails look like regular old toenails again. Too late, he realizes that the special artworks attached to his toenails have been sucked down the drain after falling off in the hot water. He thinks to himself “Good riddance. They were starting to itch anyway.”
He decides the thing to do now is to call his lawyers in to see if he can sue the manicurists and he can feel them out about how many coins he can get. But of course he can’t tell them about coins yet. You know how lawyers are, they are likely to twist around all of the words until they have figured out a way to take a cut of his as yet not coined coins.
So the king calls his lawyers whose secretary tells him his lawyers are on vacation right now but please call back later. The king asks her if she knows who he is and she says yes. She explains that the lawyers have been planning this vacation for ages. They are totally unreachable but maybe she can help him. She has been taking some paralegal night classes and she isn’t half bad if she does say so herself.
After wangling it out of her that they will be gone for six months cruising out on the water somewhere, he hangs up after promising to contact her if he gets really really desperate.
The king decides that since the lawyers will be out of town for six months, that he might as well head on over to the black smith’s because his polo pony needs some new shoes, a lock for the drawbridge and he has also been thinking about buying a safe for all his future new coins. That is, he can buy a safe with some of the coins after there actually are some coins. Scratch the idea of the safe. It’s not good to put the horse before the cart and it’s an even worse idea to buy things on credit when he could just wait a little longer.
On second thought, he will skip the trip to the black smith altogether since he is getting tired after all this excitement about coining coins.
Down below the city of doing in the burgeoning factories of doers, there is a great clanking going on. The king realizes he will not sleep well with all of that noise so he goes down into the dark dungeon to determine where the din developed. Is damage accruing? He stumbles and bumps along and then ends his trip by colliding into a surprise of something big and solid.
The king crumples down. Now he starts to see stars. Stars in the bowels of the city? Whatever will they think of next. Dumped like a pile of dung growing ever cooler until then he crosses over into coldness.
Much later, people start to wonder, where is our king? What did he do? What has become of him? Where has he done gone? Did he go alone? Did he go wrong? What is the meaning of him taking a vacation right when the coins are now coined and the coin circulation is starting? Did his circulation stop at the same time that the coins came into being?
All fine questions but no one knows the answer until the lawyers’ secretary remembers to call back the king after the lawyers return from their vacation. The king’s cell phone just rings and rings but let no one accuse the secretary of giving up easily. She just keeps calling again and again until finally the king is roused from his slumber.
“It’s like a refrigerator in here. I will be done for soon” the king complains. Dark and very quiet except for that crazy ringing in his ears. “Not really a ringing either. More like a familiar tune. Now where have I heard that before and where am I?” He is talking to himself, it seems but then he goes quiet again.
Outside the new room size refrigerator recently installed, the advertising merchandisers are still searching for their king when they thought they heard an annoying cell phone ringing. Was it ringing in the refrigerator? And then they thought they heard talking. Very peculiar.
The advertising merchandisers open the refrigerator door and light floods in, revealing the king fast asleep with his cell phone not far away. It rings again but then stops as the battery dies.
The advertising merchandisers are anxious to go back down to suburbia but the drawbridge is stuck shut. They need the king to agree to pay the drawbridge repairers in funny money.
The newly coined coins were a big hit until the lawyers, recently back from vacation, also decided to get into the action by having the bankers print them some money. Everyone thought that was funny so the money started getting called funny money.
While the king was sleeping in the new refrigerator, coins had become popular, the advertising merchandisers had snuck down to the suburbs to collect coins until funny money became necessary because inflation had increased the need for more and more coins until nobody could carry around enough of them to buy anything let alone have enough to pay to have the drawbridge repaired.
All the while, the king was laying in a heap below the grade of the wall like an egg fallen from above and cracked to pieces. The call had gone out for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. However, very few had been able to enter the city because of course the drawbridge was stuck shut and nobody could get the king to agree to pay for drawbridge repairs.
What to do? The king is perhaps close to dead indeed while the lawyers are drawing up a deed for the city of Do on the hill before it is too late to make it look like the king signed it over to them before he died. Who will be done first, the lawyers or the king? Will it be death for the king of a dedeeded city on the hill as the lawyers decide to go coop instead of monarchy this time around? If they come out on top, they have decided to name the new city Done on the Dome.
Happy alphabetting to you regardless. The city of Do has become Done with the deal of a deed dedeeded by lawyers. The moral of the multiplying formerly oral story is that nobody lived happily ever after as the lawyers continue to demand to be paid and the self-dumped king sits in his new dungeon refrigerator waiting to be found by future archaeologists.
D is for deed indeed don’t you think? Are we done? You decide. Don’t wait for the king to decide about the new city of Done on the Dome that was decreed. Is D for DE or ED or DEdeedED?