and the popular (well it was popular in Asia) Humourous Lessons in Business, Tales of a Dissatisfied Squid Salesman II
The direction was east. It could have been west, the world being a sphere and all, but the first plane out of town was going east.
David’s now estranged twin brother Allen had financed his trip through the sale of David’s car and was looking forward to a bright new future (as well as backward at not a few creditors).
Unaware that Allen still had a set of his car keys; David wandered the parking lot before realizing that he really missed Allen and wanted to see him again. Preferably in a dark alley.
After a series of plane and train rides on borrowed tickets and documents, Allen arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal.
His first thoughts were, “They’ll never find me here”.
His second thoughts were, “Where the heck is here”?
His third thoughts were, “Seems like a good place for some meditation. Some reflection, introspection and any other ‘ection’”.
Having heard the villagers speak of a remote monastery, Allen determined that he should take up meditation in a local bar. Allen recalls, “A lot of time passed, much of which was, quite frankly, a blur, before I was awakened to the desire to get back into the world of commerce”.
The thing that awoke him was the squawking of the bar’s fax machine.
After buying a few more drinks and listening to the bartender explain how the fax worked, Allen decided to re-launch his career by selling facsimile machines to the masses. After all, who wouldn’t want badly pixilated pictures and text sent right to their own home?
Unfortunately the masses did not live in Nepal.
Fortunately China with its masses was right next door.
After a month or so, riding in carts pulled by various animals, he arrived at The Bamboo Curtain.
Unfortunately it was closed.
Undaunted, but quite miffed, Allen returned to Kathmandu where he lingered a few weeks or maybe months until he left his bar stool and set his sights on India, a land teeming with masses and hardly any bamboo.
After a month or so, riding in carts pulled by various animals, he arrived in India.
Allen had seen a map of the world but up until recently had no idea what the scale on a map represented.
After another month or so, riding in carts pulled by various animals, he arrived in an area large enough to be considered to be teeming.
The trip had been long and fraught with perils and snakes but the people of the area were a friendly lot and he was soon having a drink with someone who was willing to share his whiskey. Someone’s whiskey.
That someone had left a truck full of the stuff with the keys in the ignition and his new friend had decided to move the truck to a safer, not overlooked location.
They were well into the bottle, all the time looking over their shoulders for any sign of the owner of the truck so they could flag him down.
They should have been looking in the vicinity of their ankles as suddenly karma (a concept Allen had never heard of) reared its ugly head in the form of a venom spitting cobra.
Cobras are actually quite beautiful if you ignore their tendency to spit venom in your eyes with great accuracy even from a great distance.
His drinking partner froze with fear but Allen, startled out of his wits, sprayed his mouth full of whiskey right into the cobra’s face. (Don’t try this at home kids)
You have never seen a more affronted looking cobra in your life.
As the cobra slithered off to wherever snakes go, Allen became aware of the owner of the truck coming Right down the alley. Exit stage Left.
To be continued…
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