The Apple Racket

write a short story about the benefit of apples. an apple a day keeps the doctor away the cooing mother sings to her child. It is every child's first memory, the sing-song instructions and the emphasis on the health benefits of apples. Apples had helped generations grow healthy and strong. Children everywhere sat and listened to their parents tell them about apples and how if they just eat an apple a day then all their dreams and their wishes will come true. The apple was the key component to their success. You might get lucky they told their children and you can get by without having an apple a day, but it's risky and you'll be much better off if you do eat an apple a day. A day comes in the life of every child that they notice their parents aren't eating apples and they wonder why. The parents explain that they ate all their apples growing up and once you're an adult the apples aren't necessary anymore, unless you want to do something else in your life. Then you have to cram as many apples in a day as you can. That's why some adults eat apples they'll explain. Satisfied with the answer the child moves on to school knowing that their parents, whom they love and trust, have told them an apple a day is what is important.

Then children go off to school where they meet teachers, principals, guidance counselors and coaches, all of whom have grown strong by eating their apples. They tell the students, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. For twelve years they repeat and reinforce what their parents had told them.
Even in the summers a lot of children ate an apple a day and studied so they could one day cram in all the final apples they needed to do right before becoming an adult. Those last bushels were always more expensive, but still, the investment was worth it in avoiding the doctor's bills alone.

Then came the crisis. The farmers had seen how much money they could make selling apples and they started to work to raise their profits. They packaged them differently, making them shiny and unique. They advertised to the students, who by the time they are in high school have to start looking for where they can get their final bushels from before becoming an apple. Apples, having been around for centuries, thousands of years even, suddenly became a hot commodity. Apple bushels, even though they hadn't changed in twenty years were suddenly twenty times the price. Still the parents and the teachers, and more importantly, the marketers and the apple bushel sellers and the government who wanted to prop up the apple sellers kept preaching the importance of apples. So the kids, right on the brink of adulthood, are asked to prepare to buy their final apple bushels. The cost is too much so the bankers say, we'll give you the money and you just pay us back later. So the child, who has been told for his or her entire life by nearly every important person in their life that they have to eat an apple a day for the transition into adulthood, has to make a choice. Do they accept the banker's money to do the thing that all those important people told them they have to do, do they step back a moment and objectively block out what they've had a dozen or so years of marketing material shoved down their throats by people who have spent a lifetime learning how to be persuasive and say, "I think I'm going to try and go without the apples". Of course not, they have everyone they love and trust plus the professional pushers telling them to eat the apple. They take the bank's money because they believe it's the only way to keep the doctor away.

Then came the crisis. The blight. The apples weren't healthy. The whole economy crashed. Somehow the prices of apples still went up. The kids, now adults, saddled with the banker's loans struggled to find meaningful work. They got sick. They needed doctors. But they didn't have any money. All of it went to pay back the loans they were told were necessary to keep away the doctors. Now they have doctor's bills on top of the loans. They're angry. They feel cheated. Their parents generation responds with a complete lack of empathy and a complete lack of understanding. They tell them that they shouldn't have taken the loans out in the first place. One young man asks, should we have not listened to you then or should we not listen to you now. One young man, whose parents had bought him the bushels he needed to transition into adulthood, declares the other young man is just a loafer. (The first young man weeds the other young man's garden). Tumult occurs as each generation blames the other. Anger permeates the village and everybody has an opinion, even and especially so the ones who had their apples paid for by someone else or paid for their apples twenty years ago when a part time summer job would pay enough for the whole year's worth of apples. Finally, the apple orchard is burned down by the disillusioned poor. In the aftermath a man plans to plant a peach tree. He tells his companion, "A plump peach a week gives you everything you seek". His friend responds, it's a good start but think on this, "A plump peach this very hour will keep your fate from ever going sour". The first one agrees, but says they'll start slow and then with effective marketing move up to eating by the hour.