Father was amiss of how strong the storm was coming.  He closed the shutters and pulled down the windows and saw how badly damaged the window sill was, leaving a splinter in his hand.  His son slammed the door as he came in from the beach, while tracking a trail of dirt in the foyer.

“Go wash you feet and clean your toes.”  Father said.

“Why do I have to clean it?”  His son answered.

Father said, “if you don’t, your foot will take over your toes.

The boy laughed, “father you are so old, you don’t know what you are talking about.  You’re not making any sense.”  He brushed off the bottom of his feet with his hands, looking at his grandfather at the corner of his eye, while pulling himself back against the couch and placing his head on a pillow.

Father grinned and said, “you forgot about the story.”  Then paused, “maybe I didn’t tell you about the story yet, of how the toes were taken over, because they were dirty.”  He stressed, “because of one dirty toe.”

He began to tell the story…

Each person owns their own country and is making money for and from it.

There is a neutral country that holds every member country’s money.

Country A is doing so well, they are able to save much more money.

Country Z is doing so bad that they are losing money.  It has to pay their bills to the people in their country.  He asks the neutral country for their savings, but finds out they have no more savings.  He begs the neutral country for money, fearing his people would get him.

The neutral country lends him country A’s money and says to country Z, “you have to pay me back quickly with interest”, because he doesn’t want country A to find out.  But country Z has difficulty paying neutral country back.

Then country A decides to retire and is interested in leaving the planet.  He asks for his savings from neutral country.

Neutral country said that he loaned the money to country Z and can’t get it back.

Country A is angry and wants all his money now, not a little at a time.  He doesn’t want it after his retirement, which is what neutral country tried to promise him.

Country A threatens to shut neutral country down for what he has done to his money.

He is angry.  He can’t retire and leave the planet like he had planned.  He has to take over neutral country to collect what is owed him.

Country A is still angry and wants to destroy country Z for taking his money, but instead decides to recoup his money by taking over country Z.

Rattled and indecisive, he goes back to his original plan and destroys country Z.  

Country A gets furious that he can’t retire, because now he has to manage neutral country and country Z.  

He then decides to take over all the other countries that was contributing to neutral country, because he still did not get back all his money.

He takes over all of the rest of the countries, now collecting profit just for himself.  He gets rid of the other leaders of the country and replaces them with his own people.

Finally he retires, while collecting money from his new empire.

Half asleep, his son walked slowly to the shower.  “Why can’t you just tell me who these countries are?  Who is country A?  And what do countries have to do with dirty toes!”

Father laughed, “you’ll figure it out in a minute, right after your shower.  It’s like learning the alphabets from A to Z.”