It's Nut Valuable Once upon a time a wise and thoughtful craftsman made a new electric adding machine. It was very complex with many gears and levers and wheels, and it did amazing things, always adding up the numbers correctly. So the craftsman sold it to a businessman for many thousands of dollars. All the parts inside the new adding machine felt good about being so valuable. They worked hard and happily all day, and often talked about how useful they were to the businessman. But one day a spring noticed a little nut just sitting on the end of a shaft. The spring pulled at the lever he was attached to and pointed. Soon the whole works knew. "You lazy little nut," said a spinning gear, "why don't you get to work?" "But I am working," said the nut. "Holding on is my job." "That's stupid," yelled a cam. "I don't believe our maker put you here. You just sneaked in to steal some of our glory. Why don't you get out?" "Well," said the nut, "I'm sure our maker knew what he was doing, and that I do serve a purpose. I hold on as tightly as I can." But all the machinery began to squeal and abuse the nut so violently that he felt very sad and began to doubt himself. "Maybe I am useless," he thought. He appealed to the shaft he was threaded onto. "Look, kid," the shaft told him, "I've got plenty of other parts holding on to me. I shouldn't have to support you, too." So finally the little nut decided to unscrew himself and go away. He dropped off the shaft and fell through a hole in the bottom of the machine. "Good riddance," said the motor. "Yeah, good riddance," all the other parts agreed. Rather quickly the nut was forgotten and things went on as they had for awhile. But in a few hours, the shaft began to feel funny. At first he began to vibrate. Then he started sliding and slipping. He called for help to the other parts attached to him, but they could do nothing. Presently the shaft fell completely out of his mounting hole, causing many levers and gears and cams to slip out of alignment and crash against each other, and forcing the whole machine to grind to a halt with an awful noise. The motor tried his best to keep things going--he tried so hard that he bent many of the parts--and then as he tried even harder, he burned himself out. "This is all the fault of that little nut," the ruined parts all agreed. "I'll give ya three bucks for it," said the junk man to the office manager. +++ Kath <mzmouser@earthlink.net> ~`* `*' `*' `* `*' `*' *' `*' *' `*' `* `*' *' `*' ~~~