---

Latest Story | A Fable about Attention | A Fable about Pot-covers | A Fable about Financial Foresight | A Fable about Another Family | A Fable about Gaming Protocol | A Fable about Hotel Ditties | A Fable about Insurance | A Fable about Point-of-View | A Christmas Fable | Ant Gods | Happenstance | A Fable about an Unexpected Evolution | A Fable about Flattery | A Fable about Forbearance | A Fable about Giftedness | A Fable about Response | A Fable about Tenacity | Homeboy Back & Blue | A Fable about Administrative Slogans | A Fable about Alien Motives | A Fable about Procedure | A Fable about Climate Change | A Fable about Deities | A Fable about Dark Matter | A Fable about Diligence | Guppies | A Fable about Pool Parties | A Fable about Un-Natural Selection | Homeward Bound (excerpt) | A Fable about Breaking News | A Fable about Jibes | A Fable about Psycho-Physics | A Fable about Toughness | A Fable about Surrender | A Fable about Insight | A Fable about Boundaries | Cabbie | A Fable about Definitions | A Fable about Offspring | A Fable about Awareness | A Fable about Authority | A Fable about Cause & Effect | Another fable about Perspective | Succulence | Transaction | A Fable about a Transformation | A Fable about Off-Message | | A Fable about Symbiosis | A Fable about Union | Moe, the Vagabond | Tinker Thinker | One Never Knows | A Fable about the Internet | A Fable about Gods | A Fable about Prediction | A Fable about Craft | A Fable about Debate | A Fable about Smartness | Another Fable about Research | Boots | A Fable about Mindset | Circle of Shade | A Fable about Gamesmanship | Another Fable about Community | A Fable about Multi-Tasking | A Fable about Ditziness | Ties | A Fable about Fortune | A Fable about a Franchise | A Fable about a Glitch | A Fable about Genetic Research | A Fable about Mites and Men | A Fable about Protest | A Fable about Quests | A Fable about Utility | Twin Game | The Crossing | A Fable About The Resort Business | A Fable About Crisis | A Fable About Space/Time | A Passing Talent | Rooli, the Slave | A Fable About A Carbon Footprint | A Fable About Resurrection | A Measure Of Respect | Creature | Meanings | A Fable about an Extraordinary Rendition | Old Shoes | Trancendental Fable | A fable about a Sales Pitch | A fable about Fear | A fable about Servitude | Postcards | hotdog | Familiar Eyes | Cruisers | Click For Older Stories...

---

A Fable about Off-Message

As Man-in-Charge & Speaker for the Evening, his manner was gravitas personified and he asserted his opinions in a lovely resonant voice. In opening, he cleared his throat much like a mellow thunder and got all the possible attention.

"Tonight, my friends, the topic is 'Vitamins'," he crooned from behind an earnest smile. "Eat fresh fruit!" he exhorted. "You want them Digestion-Friendly and Natural. As in the fresh fruit or from-the-garden veggie. Vitamin, the very word itself, is about 'life'. Check that out! 'Manufactured' vitamin is an oxymoron. Truth is that they're roasted or dried or sprayed lifeless. Then they get inside you and become a strain on your vital body processes---"

From back of the room, a young lady interrupted. "---we know all that, darling! You're, like, singing to the choir, telling secrets to the village gossip."

An elderly bald-headed man stood up and announced bitterly. "Look here, kid! Adam Smith put out one single Theory and now look at us! Flat broke! Shameful!"

A recently teenaged fellow with mischievous beard and twinkling manner fired off, "You can't stand the heat. . .!"

Then a robust woman front-row seated pronounced with a hollow voice, "All this is like an ice-cream ad with Alfred Hitchcock intoning 'Eat Responsibly!'"

At which, mysteriously, the audience hooted and hollered with delirious merriment until soon, no one could recall the Speaker's original statement.

Moral: Misdirection can be a tout's nightmare.