Ant And The Grasshopper Remix - 2010 Version

Ant And The Grasshopper Redux

On 08.30.10, in Fun, Regime, by Sad Hill

You’ve likely read the Ant and Grasshopper parable. But when your folks email the story to you 3 times, you better publish it. The good news is it’s been updated for today’s modern reader.

Original Version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Redux Version

The ant works hard in the withering heat and rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well-fed while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and ABC newscasts show pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table full of food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be…that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

A representative of the NAGB (National Association of Green Bugs) appears on Nightline and charges the ant with green bias, claiming the grasshopper is a victim of 200+ years of greenism. Kermit the Frog joins the grasshopper on Oprah and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’

ACORN stages a ‘We Shall Overcome’ demonstration in front of the ant’s home and Reverend Jeremiah Wright asks the group to kneel while he offers a prayer, for the grasshopper’s sake. President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight. In an interview with Chris Mathews, Nancy Pelosi says the ant got rich off the back of the grasshopper and needs to be investigated. Both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the EEAGA (Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act), retroactive to the beginning of greenism. The ant is fined for failing to hire the required number of green bugs. Having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, the ant’s home is confiscated by the government’s Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the house, previously owned by the ant, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t maintain it. The ant disappears in the snow never to be seen again. The grasshopper dies in a drug-related incident and the ramshackle is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once prosperous and peaceful neighborhood. On the news that evening, the President stands before his wildly-applauding minions and announces, ‘a new era of fairness has dawned.’

Hat tip: Mom/Dad