Greed

This is the story of the greedy squirrel and the responsible squirrel.

It was autumn, and all the tasty acorns were falling from the trees. The responsible squirrel set about gathering acorns for for the winter. He told himself,

“For every 4 acorns I gather, I'll eat one and put three away and then I'll have plenty of acorns for the winter.”

And that's what he did.

Meanwhile, the greedy squirrel ate every acorn he came across. He thought to himself,

“This is brilliant. There are so many acorns.”

And the greedy squirrel ate and ate and ate.

The responsible squirrel warned him that he should save some acorns for the winter but the greedy squirrel didn't listen to him.

And the greedy squirrel continued eating all the acorns while the responsible squirrel continued to save them away for winter.

And one day, there were no more acorns in the forest. Winter had come and a thick blanket of snow covered the entire forest.

The greedy squirrel looked all over, behind every bush and beneath every root, but he couldn't find any acorns.

Meanwhile, the responsible squirrel stayed safe and warm in his tree, with all the acorns he needed.

And the greedy squirrel was very hungry and very sad.

So he went and found all the other greedy squirrels who were also sad and hungry and told them about all the acorns the responsible squirrel had.

And together they planned to steal all the acorns from the responsible squirrel.

And the responsible squirrel couldn't a do thing about it because he was a damn clown with no means to defend himself.

And the greedy squirrels punk'd him like the fool he was and took his shit.

The greedy squirrels moved throughout the forest, pillaging the nests of all these bitch-ass responsible squirrels.

And the greedy squirrels made it through the winter while the responsible squirrels had to get by on scraps and whatever they could beg back from the greedy squirrels.

And the greedy squirrels agreed to give them some acorns back on the condition that when the next spring rolls around, they'll have to collect acorns for them. They said:

“For every 4 acorns you gather, you give three to us and keep one for yourself.”

The responsible squirrels thought this was unfair.

But they weren't the ones with the power here.

So the responsible squirrels agreed and now for every 4 acorns they collected, they would give three to the greedy squirrels and they would keep one for themselves.

And the greedy squirrels amassed a large surplus of acorns but they weren't gonna get played like these responsible squirrels so they used the surplus to pay chipmunks to protect their stash.

And with this standing army of chipmunks, this cruel oligarchy of greedy squirrels were able to keep the responsible squirrel masses in their place and protect their state from neighbouring forests.

Because the greedy squirrels understood what the responsible squirrels didn't.

Forest law be ruthless.