"Peepers... I need a calculator. You have a calculator on paw?""What's that you say? Ask my sister, Mason? Ask her what? Ask her if she has a calculator? When did Mason get a calculator? Where did mason get a calculator? Did she borrow yours?"
"Oh... You mean I should ask her for help with this math stuff. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks Peepers! Forgot about those thumbs of hers."
Yeah, Mason is a polydactyl cat and has thumbs on both her front paws which she puts to use, counting and stuff.
Knitting, you ask? No, she hasn't attempted knitting, as of yet. Don't know why because with those thumbs, I bet she could knit if she tried. MOUSES!
And speaking of knitting, knitting up a few nip mice would be an excellent thing for Mason to do but first things first. Before there is any knitting done, I have some calculating to do.
"Oh Mason... Wanna come here and calculate some stuff for me? Here are the numbers I need you to crunch."
I handed Mason the numbers and watched her crunch them. She handed the crunched up paper back to me and I examined her figures.
MOUSES! Just as I thought. I had a problem of monumental proportions. A problem that could not be solved with any amount of crunching but just to be on the safe side, I asked Mason to crunch the numbers once more.
"Mason, those figures don't work for me. Wanna try that again? Try adding them up differently. Maybe you'll get a better result this time."
Mason scowled at me like only a Mason can do. She pawed at the numbers, rolling up the paper they were on into a ball and crunching that ball really well. She sat on it. She spat on it. She even gave it a lick or two before performing a few figure eights and batting the paper ball back to me.
Same figures as before. "Mason," I said, "try a few more figure eights. See if that makes a difference," but Mason simply threw up her paws before leaving the room in disgust. MOUSES!
What to do? What to do? I examined the numbers once more. Nope, these calculations weren't working for me at all.
I had discovered, you see, a problem with my latest endeavour. The whole nip farm thing wasn't working quite the way I wanted it to work. MOUSES!
I had such hopes. Such dreams. I, Seville the Cat, had planned on becoming a gentleman nip farmer, you see.But yesterday, I discovered the most horrible of horrible things. The price of nip has gone down. MOUSES!
I'm not sure how this all came about although I suspect it has something to do with weasels. Bad things usually do.
This is a catastrophe of catastrophic proportions, for sure. MOUSES!
I wouldn't put it past that old Weasel Syndicate to be messing around with nip futures and manipulating stock prices and whatever else weasels might do. On the other paw, maybe they've just flooded the market with the stuff. That would lower prices, too.
I know what you're thinking. Lower nip prices are good for cats who consume. Well of course nipheads are going to like lower nip prices for then they can get nipped for far less.
But what future is there in nip farming if the price of nip is too low? MOUSES!
If my numbers are correct, it'll cost more for me to get the nip out of the ground than what I can sell it for. This is not good. This is not good at all. Negative profit isn't really profit at all. MOUSES!
"Mason, come crunch these numbers once more. See if you can make the numbers acceptable. Please?"
Darn, she says the numbers will remain the same no matter how much crunching we do.
Looks like every dollar of nip sold will cost two dollars to grow and harvest. MOUSES!
As I see it, I have two options. I can leave the nip in the ground and come up with some other product to sell or I can grow and harvest it at a loss.
On the other paw...
On the other paw, I can easily convince the peeps to pay for the growing and harvesting of the nip. Peep #1 has to look after the garden anyway, right? Well while she's looking after the garden, she can look after my nip, too. If she's watering the garden, she can water my nip as well. If she's weeding - which, believe me, she very rarely does - she can head on over to my nip plants and do a little weeding there as necessary. If she's buying manure for her flowers, she can buy a little extra for my nip. And as for harvesting, why pay for peeps to harvest nip when I can get my peeps to harvest it for free? I'll call it an internship or something like that. MOUSES!
So if the peeps pay for the growing costs and I get them to harvest the nip for free, I'll have zero operating costs. That means I can sell the nip with a hundred percent profit. Hundred percent profit works for me!Way better than that negative profit thingy, for sure.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm fudging the books. Well I'm not. When you think about it, I'm actually doing the peeps a favour. I'm uh... Ummm... I'm...
Awww.... MOUSES!
Okay, look at it this way. What's wrong with a little fudge on some books? Peep #1 loves books and she kind of likes fudge, too, so I'm thinking fudging the books isn't such a bad thing to do and I'll challenge anyone to tell me differently. MOUSES!
