Thanks to David Mitchell for the idea. Here's the story.
It was lunch time in the cafeteria. This was where the real learning took
place. This was where the action
was…where it all went down. If you have
ever seen the trading floor on Wall Street, you know exactly what I am talking
about. The only difference was no one in
the middle school stood more than 5 ‘4 (except for Mark Donaldson, but he
didn’t count because supposedly his mother fed him horse steroids when he was
baby).
This was the
commodities floor. Anything could be
traded for anything by a skilled trader and a trader was only as good as his
last trade. Here on the floor, a Magic
Moments chocolate pudding could fetch up to three chocolate chip granola bars
on a good day. But there were other
days, like when fruit roll up’s put out a new flavor, that you couldn’t give
away a chocolate pudding.
Gerald was known as
one of the most skilled traders on the floor.
It was rumored he had started his career last September with only a
package of salted peanuts and had been trading his way up since then. Gerald didn’t pack a lunch, he didn’t need
to. He ate the cream. The cream was the top fifteen or twenty
percent of his trades, usually the perishables like ice cream bars and
chocolate milk.
In January Gerald had
purchased an extra locker from Samantha Brooke, a girl in grade six, for whole
box of ding-dongs. HeH He called this his pantry. Anything a middle schooler could ever crave
was available from the pantry…at a price of course. It was true. Gerald was a legend of the
trading floor.
But today was to be
Gerald’s finest performance. Today he
had a plan that would surpass even his greatest trades of all time. Gerald entered the trading floor without a
packsack. He hadn’t a single edible
item, but in his left hand he held a chart affixed to an easel and in his right
he held a huge stack of yellow paper slips.
Gerald climbed on top of the folding table in the middle of the trading
floor and unfolded the easel. He coughed once to clear his throat and to gain
the attention of the students in the cafeteria, all of whom had been transfixed
on him since he entered the room.
“Ladies and
gentleman, today is history in the making for our trading floor. Today we will enter the 21st
century of trading. No longer will the
silly whims of fickle peanut allegies or upset stomachs determine the value of
your snacks. No longer will one parent's
trip to Costco ruin the value of your Oreo cookies. No, today and from this day forward, things
on this trading floor will be different.
I have devised a system of currency and fixed prices that will make your
trading fast, efficient, and fair. If
you look at this chart you will see that each item you have has a value. It has a number assigned to it: one, two, or three. That directly corresponds to the number of
trading floor tickets that item is worth.
These tickets are as good as money.
They can be used to trade for anything and no one on the trading floor
may refuse to trade. And to show my
generosity and the faith I put in this currency, for today only I will be
giving away an extra ticket for everyone who comes to cash in their snacks for
tickets.”
The kids all looked
at each other. This was incredible; it
was almost like a two for one deal.
Everyone imagined themselves with more snacks than they could eat. There was a line up at the table and Gerald
quickly collected the snacks in exchange for his yellow paper tickets. In a show of good faith, as soon as the snacks
were collected, Gerald opened up shop.
He emptied out the snacks onto the table and collected up the tickets
again. To sweeten the deal, Gerald mixed
in a generous selection from his pantry.
Everyone came out with something as good or better. Some even decided to
keep their tickets for the next day.
The next day was frantic
on the trading floor. Gerald collected
the tickets and set up shop again, but he was not the only one making
deals. On the other side of the
cafeteria, there was a market in fruit leather immerging. Deals were being made everywhere. Anything could be traded for anything
now. There was no worry that not
everyone liked what you had brought.
Everyone liked the tickets.
A week had passed
and the tickets had begun to show up in classrooms. The teachers thought they were bookmarks,
proof that their government mandated reading program had finally taken off.
But on the trading
floor something was happening. Gerald
had not been bringing in any more snacks.
He didn’t need to because everyday, he simply brought in another handful
of yellow tickets. He had purchased
another locker from Kevin Doyle, who seemed very content to hang his belongings
on a hook in the classroom. Gerald named
his new locker Pantry 2.0. It was almost
full now. He was still eating the cream
off his trades, but now the cream was only 5% of his trades.
Gerald walked up to
Derek, a grade six.
“Trade me for your
fudge bar.” Gerald held out two tickets.
“No,” said Derek.
“What do you mean
no? You have to trade. These are trading
floor rules.”
“I don’t care. I
will only trade for a pudding.”
“But this is just as
good as a pudding. See, look,” Gerald
pointed to the chart where pudding was clearly worth two tickets.
“That was last
week. Now a pudding is worth five
tickets and who knows what it will be worth next week. I will only trade for an actual pudding.”
“I will give you ten
tickets,” Gerald reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wrinkled fistful
of currency.
Down the hall, Kevin Doyle and Samatha Brooke were fingering
the combination locks on their old lockers.
Gerald had turned his attention to another kid with a stack
of fruit leather.
“Give me one piece,” Gerald pleaded.
“I only take crispy crunch bars, no tickets.” The kid was not budging.
“I have those, I mean, not here, but I can get them. Wait for me. Wait right here.”
Gerald ran down the hallway to his pantries. The doors on pantries 1.0 and 2.0 were
open. He knew they were empty before he
was able to stare into the abyss that was once a legendary stock hold of
lunchtime delights.
In the cafeteria
tickets were torn up and sprinkled like confetti from the mezzanine. More snacks than could ever be devoured by an
army of 7th graders were tossed back and forth between laughing and gorging
kids.
Gerald ran onto the trading floor in tears scooping up the
scraps of yellow paper. He dashed back
and forth between the tables making more empty promises and thrusting forth the
yellow paper. No one was interested in
what he had to say or offer. His futile attempts at making a deal were lost in
the children’s chant.
“No more tickets!”
“No more tickets!”
"When you salute the flag, you are standing in blood."
-Stefan Molyneux
Listen to and download my anarchist songs for free right here http://www.reverbnation.com/davidkopp