Tragedy of the Common Donkey

The villagers always got along more or less. There weren't that many of them, and their needs were few. In fact, they were able to work the land and raise enough crops for the whole village using a combination of manual labor and a single donkey named Dmitri. Dmitri was stubborn, but the villagers who worked the mule (Raeline and Paul) had experience with him. They could usually get him to do most of the things they needed him to do. Still, he would never plow through rocks past a certain size, and sometimes he would refuse to pull the plow at all.

When Dmitri refused to pull, Raeline and Paul would try to persuade him with gentle encouragement. "I've got an ear of corn waiting for you in the barn if you'll get up and go," Raeline would say. Dmitri was a plain donkey, not Francis the Talking Mule, so he didn't understand a word of what Raeline said. However, he was able to get a general, inexplicable positive feeling from the sound of the word "corn." Usually he would start pulling when he heard that word.

Sometimes that didn't work, though, so Raeline would get Paul to bring out the whip. Paul had the only whip in town. It wasn't much really, just enough to make a crack and sting a little bit. Paul would pop the whip a little bit and switch it across Dmitri's flanks once or twice, and Dmitri would get up and pull. He still wouldn't pull through rocks past a certain size, though, so invariably the villagers had to occasionally work the bigger rocks out of the soil by hand. That could take up to five villagers several hours if the boulder was big enough. But, it was always interesting work, good conversation, and good exercise. And, besides, they had to do it because Dmitri just plain wouldn't.

Nevertheless, quite a few villagers griped at town meetings, especially those who were due for a turn "working the boulders."

"Paul's just not whipping that donkey hard enough," said one. "Raeline isn't giving him enough corn," said another.

"And what about those two boulders in the south forty?" broke in another. "We keep having to plow around those boulders, because people can't move them and that danged donkey won't even try. He's just stubborn and lazy."

"Well, I just don't think we can do anything about that," said Paul. "I don't want to whip Dmitri too hard. It might make him more stubborn or even hurt him. And Raeline can't really give him more corn. It's too rich, and Dmitri has IBS."

Most of the crowd chuckled and shook there heads. Dmitri was Dmitri. He got a lot of work done, but he wasn't perfect. And, besides, he was the only donkey for miles around.

But a few of the villagers grumbled anyway. True, Dmitri was the only donkey they owned, and true, Dmitri did more than enough to feed the village. But why were Raeline and Paul the only ones who got to manage the donkey? The village had voted them their jobs, but that didn't mean that others didn't have input and couldn't do just as good a job.

One day, a traveling merchant came to town. He had a fine line of products in his horse-drawn wagon. Hair tonic, ginger snaps, "fixer elixir," and many other wonderful items were on display. His first day, the merchant sold many items, but two items in particular sold out. "Must order more donkey whips and donkey energy drinks," wrote the merchant in his pad. "Sold out."

It wasn't long after that that people started noticing a change in Dmitri and in the amount of work he was getting done. Dmitri seemed skittish and nervous. Flies were landing on the new welts on his back. He was packing on weight, but he wasn't getting stronger. He refused to plow at all on some days now. He was often nauseous and flatulent, and, worse, he was beginning to develop a habit of biting.

"I don't know what's wrong," cried Raeline at the village meeting. "He won't take corn now. And when Paul tries to use the whip, Dmitri just curls up in a terrified ball. Something is wrong with him."

"I told you that donkey was lazy," snarled one of the villagers. "You're just not hitting him hard enough with the whip. And you've got to give him more energy drink if you want him to have energy. You people just don't know how to work with a donkey!"

"That's right," seconded another villager who had dark circles under his eyes. "That donkey is good for nothing. Why I've tried everything to get him to...um. I mean, we need to try everything to get him to do his job."

The whole village was in an uproar, because they knew winter was coming. They needed the old Dmitri back in time for the harvest. Without him, the harvest would take too long, and the autumn rains would make the fields too muddy to get all of the wheat.

The next day, Raeline and Paul found Dmitri in the south forty next to one of the biggest boulders they had ever seen. Dmitri was covered with welts and surrounded by dozens of different human footprints. There were empty donkey energy drink cans everywhere. Raeline and Paul cried when they told the rest of the villagers the news. Many of the villagers cried too, although some averted their eyes.

That winter, the villagers lost half of their population to starvation and disease. Three-fourths of the wheat had rotted in the muddy fields in October. The donkey sausage gave out in November.

1/2 donkey and 1/2 horse, specifically a jack breed to a mare. The offspring is very smart and nearly always sterile.

Just a pet peeve of mine when dissimilar words are used interchangeably.