You can thank me later for this.

Once upon a time, in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He then announced that he would now buy monkeys for $20 each.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers, and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so small that it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50.

Since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on behalf of him.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected.”

“I will sell them to you at $35, and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.

They never saw the man nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere.

Now you have a better understanding of how the stock market works.

This one is old, but pure gold:

President Bush is rehearsing his speech, using the TelePrompTer, for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

He begins with “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!”

Immediately his speech writer rushes over to the lectern and whispers in the President’s ear:

“Mr. President, those are the Olympic rings. Your speech is underneath.”

You didn’t ask, but here are my picks in Tuesday’s election: Vermilyea, Douty, Nagle, Anderson, Pacholl, Bennett.

The First Ward’s incumbent, Brian McAlister, who is unopposed, goes down in defeat when nobody votes for him in the race and he inadvertently writes in the name “Mickey Mouse” as a joke.

Finally, Happy Merry Thanksgivoween everybody. This holiday runs Sept. 1 through Jan. 1 and features Santa driving a sleigh full of toys pulled by a turkey.

BOOOOOOOO!