Last night, after the president of my company gave me my award plaque at our company dinner, he said he wanted to tell us a story about an old Persian king. So this king loved listening to violin music, so he put a call out to the kingdom for the best violin player. They found the guy who was the star of the orchestra, so the king asked for him to come to his palace every day to play for him. So every day, he would play for the king and the king would clap wildly after he was finished, ecstatic with his violin skills. He felt proud because he could bring such joy to the king, so every day, he looked forward to traveling to the castle to play for the king. One day, he returned home and his wife looked distressed. When he asked her what was wrong, she said that he has stopped playing with the orchestra to spend every day playing for the king, and now they had no income coming in and she was worried about money. He told her not to worry, that everything would work out, and he continued to play for the king every day, instead of playing with the orchestra for pay. One day, he came home and his wife was crying. She said that she tried to go to the market and buy food to make dinner, but she had no money and no one would give her anything. He says, don’t worry, give me your list and I’ll go. So he goes to the market, picks out everything on the list, and when they tell him how much it is, he looks the vendor in the eye, and starts clapping enthusiastically. You see, he derived such pleasure for when the king clapped for his violin playing and took this as the king’s payment, he assumed that this vendor would accept clapping as tender as well. Of course he didn’t, but when the story traveled back to the king, the king laughed and sent him enough money to take care of himself and his family.
“So the moral of this story,” the president said in his broken English, “is…the clap…will not pay your bills.”
Indeed, wise president. The clap will definitely not pay your bills.