Transcript - Izzit.org

MAN: Trouble was they were just like everybody else’s mushrooms - the Shepherds’, the Masons’, the
Cowherds’ and the Farmers’… particularly the Farmers’.
WOMAN: Trust their luck to turn up the year’s first tomato crop when everybody is fed up to their teeth
with mushrooms. Oh dear!
MAN: Oh, what a day!
WOMAN: Oh … I know! I wouldn’t have cared if I’d never ever seen another plate of mushrooms.
BOTH: Oh, no!
MAN: They were all rotten by the next day anyway, so we ended throwing them all away. At least that
was one advantage.
WOMAN: Disadvantage is what I called it. Something else could have been stored for a rainy day, but
not mushrooms!
MAN: No, not mushrooms!
WOMAN: Then I suddenly had another thought. Why don’t we use things the other way round Why
don’t we only spend an hour or so collecting mushrooms, and the rest of the time collecting masses and
masses of plums That would please our customers.
MAN: And make us a fortune. What a brilliant idea! It really made sense.
MAN: Mushrooms were getting harder to find anyhow, and the plum crop was getting better and better.
WOMAN: So that’s exactly what we did, but it’s funny how things don’t turn out how you expect.
MAN: I remember that day calling out, “Get your lovely juicy plums! Roll up, then, roll up here they are
now, the fruit to tingle your taste buds. Roll up, and please form an orderly queue. Roll up! Roll up!
Plums, all fat and juicy! Every one a winner. Come on, ten cents a bowl- all fresh-picked with my own
fair hands this morning. Straight from the…”
WOMAN: Hello! Alright, one at a time, please. Sorry, can you just be patient
It wasn’t what I’d call one of the most successful of days. Even though it was a slack time, I’m sure we
could have earned more money on either day by weaving cloth and selling clothes. Just as last time we
had a load of mushrooms we didn’t know what to do with- this time we had a mass of overripe plums.
MAN: Too true - rich man, poor man, beggar man, bankrupt. You know, I remember thinking that- the
first time people would have paid three times as much for my plums.
WOMAN: And I remember thinking, “I’d have sold all my mushrooms, if only I’d been charging half
the price”
MAN: Right, and at half the price- I’d have sold all my plums the next day.
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