Once upon a time there was a poor girl named Cinderella. All of her friends were driving BMWs and Lexus's while she had to ride a bicycle and clean houses. Then one day she heard there was a huge gala ball on Wall Street. She wept for days because she couldn't afford to go. She couldn't even afford the power suit that would get her in the front door.

Suddenly Fairy Greenspun arrived at her door with lowered interest rates and a good size 6 womans' suit. He waved his magic wand and turned Cinderella's bicycle into a limousine and turned her pet dog into a chauffer. He said "Now Cinderella, I have used my powers to create these illusions of wealth and as a result the dow will go up over 10,000 but at the stroke of midnight 12/31/1999 everything will go back to the way it was unless banking is 100% Y2k compliant so you had better get out of the market before then."

Well you know what happened. Cinderella got caught up in the party, left to late, lost her shoe and all her finery went back to the same old stuff. Luckily a wealthy investment banker had got a glimpse of her and searched for her high and low and took her off to his prepped castle in the south of France. But the unrealistic happy ending is what makes this story a fairytale instead of a fable.

The End

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), September 16, 1999

Answers

Moral of the story...The bigger they are the higher the building they jump off of

-- Eric michael (bizarr2@hotmail.com), September 16, 1999.

So I guess this means that a wealthy benefactor who will subsidize my stay at the y2k paradise in New Zealand is out of the question.

-- Lynn Ratcliffe (mcgrew@ntr.net), September 16, 1999.