Grexit Stopolopolus Gets In A Fix

Don’t know how it happened but Grexit, a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy who liked nothing more than sitting around in the evening drinking wine with his family and friends received a letter from a Heirich Ackermann that his loan had been approved and the sum of 10 million euros would be deposited in his account by close of business on the following day.

“Nice” thought Grexit, not one to read the small print on boring documents so he just went with the flow and ordered a Ferrari for each member of his family including his thirteen year old son because, let’s face it, even if you can’t drive, having a nice set of wheels puts a bit of stride in your step.

A quick million or two and he had secured a new home complete with a swimming pool in every room and enough garages to park the sixteen cars and then it was off on the holiday of a lunchtime, involving the chartering of two jets and invitations to everyone in his village to come on the Nordic “Cooling Holiday” where those who suffered from a life of pitiless sunshine and cut-price cocktails could journey to the Baltic region of northern Europe and get stuck into a sauna or two, massages and all the sausage and pickled onion you could eat. Not everyone’s idea of a dream holiday, but good old Grexit had booked an entire hotel for a fortnight and most of the village had never been on a plane never mind a private jet so what’s to lose.

“Oh yes,” thought Grexit, “This is the lifolos” and he raised his glass to the mysterious organisation with a head office in Brussels whose kind unguarded generosity had allowed him to enjoy a lifestyle which his 18,000 euros a year salary would never have enabled him to experience.

On his return from the Baltic, he sat around for two days before dragging the entire village off to the Virgin Islands for more snorkelling and a wide range of cocktails. Some of the villagers expressed unease but he said, “Do not worryos. I will pay the whole villages salaries from now on” and who were they to argue. Soon, new swimsuits at the ready, they were on another pair of lavishly supplied private jets for a second holiday of fun and beautiful views.

Back home again, Stopolopolus looked at his post and noticed there was a letter marked “Urgent” from the nice Brussels people saying an error had been made and he must repay the money in monthy instalments of eighty thousand euros. Grexit looked up at his parrot, who had missed them all during their international travels, and said, “These Brussels people need to relax a bit. We are all the Europeans yes no, and you cannot allow arguments in the same family”

The next morning he rang Heinrich and told him funds were low, owing to a rush of expenses and the villages soaring catering budgets, but that he could certainly manage to repay 10 euros a month. Poor old Heinrich started to feel unwell because he realised that, to compound the error, he had lent the money to some crazy man from south Europe where a skill in maths, he understood, was used for nothing more than checking the number of prawns on a plate. What he fully understood was he could not write off the money as his shareholders would never forgive him, and that owing to a fire and a few car crashes, many of the purchased assets were in serious disrepair so he came to arrangement with Grexit that he would lend him a further 2 million euros so he could make the necessary repayments on the original loan.

The crisis had been avoided at both ends it seemed, and on the receipt of the funds Grexit sent of the first 80,000 euro payment as stipulated in the new agreement and then took only his family, because sensible budgeting was his new hobby, to Florida to celebrate getting out of a bit of a scrapelos and reaffirming the strength of the European family. They did not buy new swimsuits.

Advertisement