travelling through china monkey and pigsy saw mourners at a funeral burning paper cash “what a waste” said monkey “they could buy some wine with that and give a lovely wake” pigsy replied “you idiot they’re making ghost money smoke carries the cash’s spirit to heaven where the dead use it” monkey wondered why things still cost money in heaven maybe the dead just played mah-jong with it but if everything that burned ended up in heaven that explained why it was such a nice place huge forests from all the lumber torched on earth and lots of recreational herbs he felt grateful that fossil fuels weren’t in wide use so early in chinese history otherwise heaven would be full of coal heaps and oil slicks monkey decided to invest in futures he bought cheaply a group of plum tree saplings too young for bearing fruit and made a bonfire of them pigsy said “what’s going on here” monkey explained “when we get back into heaven those trees will be waiting for me and by then they’ll be laden with plums” pigsy said “my mouth’s already watering let me buy some from you now so i can eat them when we’re let back in” so pigsy bought futures in monkey’s plums for more cash than monkey had spent on all the saplings but their quest took years and pigsy got bored of waiting for his feast he sold his futures to dying people so they could enjoy monkey’s plums when they passed away monkey and pigsy thus both accrued profits without harvesting any fruit eventually our heroes gained enlightenment and re-entered heaven there they found lao-tse had eaten all of monkey’s unguarded plums an angry crowd of the dead awaited them demanding the expected treat what should monkey and pigsy do
• repay in ghost money the dead who can only use cash to play mah-jong
• give them a different treat and mix them all mojitos instead
