In DDS

At first, we didn't know what it was. Hikers, travelers, explorers found it in the mountains. And what seized the attention, apart from its pungent odor, was the lush growth of vegetation that surrounded it. Which is what prompted someone to scoop some up, take it home, and spread it in the garden.

The garden grew profusely. Neighbors asked the man what his secret was, and from there, it just took off. From gardens, it went to the farms, where it increased yields by double digits, kernel sizes by orders of magnitude, and flavor by quanta of yumminess. Then someone discovered that you could make a light, flexible, and virtually indestructible by-product from it. Soon, the by-product was being used to manufacture all manner of goods, from toys to vehicles to kitchenware.

We called the wonderful substance Miracle Dough, and we couldn't live without it. Gigantic and, above all, profitable corporations grew up to harvest, distribute, and process it. The best of these, in my opinion, was Dragon Poop, Inc., generally known as DP.

And then we found out what it was. It was dragon poop. But no one cared. Dragon poop was too useful and too profitable, and it had hardly any down side at all.

Of course, popularity has its consequences. Keeping up with the demand for dragon poop became challenging. First, the dragon poop corporations stepped up harvesting efforts, but demand soon outstripped the capacity of people to find and harvest the precious odoriferous ichor.

So then, they decided to lure dragons into urban areas, where they could drop more poop in more accessible areas. To this end, the standard virgin sacrifices were introduced. These had the added advantage of giving the dragons more to work through their digestive systems while they were in town. This worked fairly well for a while, but then the dragons seemed to lose interest. The debate about whether the problem was a dearth of virgins or the quality of the virgins is basically moot. The dragons stopped coming regularly. Not only that, but demand for dragon poop continued to rise. What to do, what to do?

The next brilliant idea was not long in coming. It was DDE, or Deep Dragon Extraction. DDE works like this. First, you locate your dragon. This is a high-tech operation. Second, approach your dragon. This requires a crack team of doers. They journey to the dragon site, reconnoiter the dragon, and wait until it is asleep. Third, they run a flexible tube up the dragon's anus and extract the precious poop. Obviously, this requires a deft touch. Finally, the team hightails it the heck out of there.

Predictably, there were some spineless critics who claimed that DDE was too "dangerous," but the hunger of the people for dragon poop carried the day. Several successful DDE projects were undertaken without incident.

And then, one day, a dragon woke up. In the immediate aftermath, the crack team wasn't fit for the charcoal burner. But that wasn't the end of it. The enraged dragon went on a scorching rampage, leveling everything in sight, and it didn't stop until ... well, actually, it's still going. But it's bound to stop soon.

The whiners, of course, started braying "I told you so." But worse, the king blinked and declared a 6-month moratorium on DDE. Well, we weren't going to stand for that. The king may be king, but this is a kingdom of laws. We sued to overturn the moratorium. (Did I mention that I am the CEO of DP?)

We got an impartial judge. He was not influenced by the stock he owned in DP. The king's lawyers argued that DDE was too risky because of the one angry dragon.

"That is faulty logic," said the judge. "Just because one measly dragon has a fit, that doesn't mean the other dozen or so that you're planning to ... plumb will."

"But," replied one of the king's lawyers, "that one measly dragon is still flying around burning down cities. Don't you think we ought to figure out how to stop it before we risk setting another one off?"

"No time for your bullshit," said the judge, as the roof of the courthouse disappeared in flame. "Moratorium overturned!"

And he scampered into an escape tunnel as the rest of the courthouse went up.

I got out barely scorched. It's a small price to pay.