Stories From The Head

There’s No Business like Monkey Business Monkeys, apart from being some of the most beautiful creatures on the planet, are devilishly clever when it comes to business. They have developed a monetary system consisting of clapping their hands, and giving warm, heart-felt hugs, instead of a more widespread “cash”-based system. This can be confusing to strangers (non-apes), like Smirg, Lome, Saft, Tempurion, Høl, Littunæ, Pes, Kåker, Lu, and a young rattlesnake called Oms. The thing that confused people the most about “monkey business”, was the fact that the cheaper the merchandise, the more hugs one received (the monkey SELLING the merchandise was the one giving the hugs, while the buyer clapped his hands). A rather successful businessman called Abacus once started a campaign to transfer the monkey-system to some of the major stock-exchanges (Ulstovang, Bach, Septer), but the whole thing collapsed within a few weeks. Transactions involving cheap stocks could take up to 72 hours worth of hugging (remember, the cheaper the merchandise, the more hugs one received), and on the worst days the whole stock-exchange would be busy hugging, while the market plummeted. This was all due to the fact that Abacus had overlooked the single thing that made monkey business such a brilliant system: All merchandise is EXTREMELY expensive, so no transactions involve long-term hugging (the clapping of hands can, of course, take some time). When the stock-exchanges around the world collapsed, and humans went back to their regular monetary systems, most monkeys shook their beautiful heads, and patted their noses at the human beings and their lousy business-sense. They simply continued trading in high-priced goods, with their hugs and hand-claps, and the humans were none the wiser. And all of this gave birth to the oft-used term: “THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE MONKEY BUSINESS…”…

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