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Chip Blumberg

A Fairy Tale … Perhaps Not!

ONCE UPON A TIME in the Kingdom of Usa, there existed a feckless king, who surely spoke a good game, but actually did little good to back up his flowery words. Periodically, the Kingdom would, as was tradition, inquire of the people as to how they felt about their daily lives and their ability to meet their needs. Was King Bo beloved, as he of course, expected?

On this particular Evaluation Day, the feckless king didn’t see it coming and hadn’t a clue as to how unhappy the citizens of Usa really were. Every speech before the people, he spoke of hope and calmed or seemingly calmed the unrest that was stirring deep inside the citizenry. The king was truly clueless as to how dire things were in the Kingdom of Usa and when he was told or warned, he scoffed and most often said “Let them eat cheese, government cheese. We see to all of their needs, by either supplementing their meager earnings or cover everything for those that chose to not even try. How could they be unhappy?” Uh oh #1 …

As it turns out, the feckless king absolutely loved to play golf perhaps more than anything else. No matter what was happening in the kingdom, or in the surrounding kingdoms he chased the little white ball, as he felt since he was “obviously” doing his best, what could possibly be wrong needing his attention. Uh oh #2 …

Actually, quite a bit was wrong, but King Bo didn’t really seem to care. He went about his merry way doing what he wanted to do. Fore!!! …

How could he act this way and how could he be so feckless, you ask? Well, King Bo had several patsies, who were his trusted advisors, whose primary job was to block all that was out of sync in and around the kingdom. Any unrest and suggestions as to how to fix that same unrest, was blocked from the king’s view. Sir Reid was in charge of bringing the “troubling” issues to King Bo, but if there were too many suggestions from the law makers, Sir Reid would simply built a bigger desk drawer to hide the burgeoning number of issues. King Bo also had Sir Holder, the law keeper who ran interference and kept the citizens arguing among themselves, thus ignoring the true why they were indeed arguing. And then there was Sir Kerry who was obsessed with building housing in neighboring kingdoms, friendly kingdoms, more so than the real threats from enemies of King Bo’s Usa.

Unfortunately for King Bo, the citizens actually knew and on this particular Evaluation Day they had enough and let their voices be heard. They hired the “Bus of No Confidence” and filled it with those rascally folks from the Red and the upset citizens instructed the driver to run down King Bo, thus ending his reign.

On the fateful day, King Bo, clueless as usual, didn’t see the bus heading his way. He was destined to be road kill, but with a bit of luck, he narrowly escaped and of course blamed his people for not doing their job and protecting him from harm. Did the king learn anything … sadly no, because when confronted he immediately challenged the lords and ladies of the Red, because he, the king, couldn’t possibly be at fault. Not him, not ever.

Will King Bo survive his reign, will he continue his feckless ways, will he try to dance around what is squarely at his feet … time will tell, although it is expected he will continue in his old ways. Stay tuned … the kingdom is surely in for a rocky ride.

About the Author
Chip Blumberg is a freelance writer and poet. He is currently working on a historically accurate fictional novella set in America during the 30s, with a decidedly Jewish list of main characters and with Jewish culture woven throughout. He is a former AM radio talk show host and long-time dealer in paper antiquities. His background is in business and professional sports management. Chip is a CPA and lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his pup.