Setting up in business was a snap.No articles of incorporation, no high priced lawyer, no forms to fill out for the government.No hiring an advertising agency to come up with a sales slogan such as "The Saber Tooth,The Whole Saber Tooth, and Nothing but the Saber Tooth." No need to issue stock, wangle a loan, or put up collateral.
Stone age man could go into retailing very easily.Instead of hiring someone to make a traffic count, he could pick a location as well as any expert.Caves usually weren't on corners, and one in the middle of the cliff was as good as any.Another thing about caves: they had no windows that could be broken when a brick was thrown through them.As a matter of fact there were no bricks for anyone to throw, only stones, and this took much of the fun out of it.
And just think of selling something without having to fool around with coupons or trading stamps.
Anything Stone Age Man could get for a gross of saber-toothed tiger teeth was clear profit.No taxes. No Interest. No insurance premiums. No overtime. No fringe benefits. No coffee breaks. No sick leaves. No unions. No strikes. No pickets.
If you had built up a strong position in retailing saber-toothed tiger teeth, and your credit was good, you could buy out another company selling mammoth tusks and then a company that had a big business in smooth round rocks for cave entrances and then a company that made clubs autographed by a well-known club swinger.You could merge with them, buying fifty-one percent of their stock, without being called a conglomerate.You were simply enterprising.
There were no meeting of stockholders. No proxies. No business cycles. No inflationary tendencies caused by a heating up of the economy. No recessions caused by a rapid cooling off of the economy.
There was no Gross National Product.Everyone was rather gross. No retooling after wars.Indeed, there were no wars.Killing was on an individual basic, and a military industrial complex was unthinkable.
Stone Age Man, sitting there in the dark of his cave after a day of hunting saber-toothed tigers and extracting the teeth, felt pretty good about the way things were going.If it wasn't light enough to read, that was all right, because there was nothing to read.And he wouldn't have to get up to replace a burnt-out light bulb.Come the first of the month, he wouldn't get an electric bill.Or a gas bill.Or, for that matter, a doctor's bill or a bill from his country club.
He never lost his wallet with all of his credit cards, because he had no wallet and no credit cards.Nor did he ever have his pockets picked, because he had no pockets.Or lose any money, because he did all of his business by means of barter, trading a saber-toothed tiger tooth for a cow and two saber-toothed tiger teeth for a woolly mammoth.
He never stood in line at the bank.Or at the post office.He never forgot what his wife told him to get at the supermarket on his way home.Stone Age Man had never heard of the Businessman's Lunch.Nor did he try to remember whose lunch he had paid for, so he could take it off his income tax as a business expense.
Stone Age Man slept soundly at night, never having to take sleeping pills and to worry about taking them.One reason he slept so soundly was that he kept himself fit by jogging several miles a day, trying to catch up with a saber-toothed tiger.Another reason was that he never read the stock report.
He had no expense account or gray flannel suit or button-down collar or attache case.In the Stone Age, the expression "on the rocks" did not mean what it does today.The same was true of "dry." Had someone handed him a swizzle stick, he would have used it to clean out his ears.
He had no secretary, and therefore never had to correct typographical errors.He had never been sick after an office party.
Nor had he heard of retirement age.If there was any reference to Big Brother, it was to a brother of his who was somewhat larger than he.Those were the Good Old Days.
reprinted from The Rotarian
Richard Armour,a famous humorist, is the author of 58 books and more than 6.000 pieces of light verse and humorous prose.His most recent book is Anyone for Insomnia?"
Richard Armour,a famous humorist, is the author of 58 books and more than 6.000 pieces of light verse and humorous prose.His most recent book is Anyone for Insomnia?"
