Legendary Insurance Actuary Len S. Cent: Part 3

One night, on Ralph’s new porch, the men got together to discuss a list of needed criteria to have one less child in the family. There was an underlying sliver of fear because these were all men with jobs in business, commerce and government always facing layoffs. All were selfish and ambitious and most stressed out of their minds, so they drank a lot.

Bill walked around making sure everyone had a drink and to consider the collective mood. It wasn’t good. He could see cracks forming and a lessening of resolve, so he pulled out Plan A from his notebook and asked everyone to watch his PowerPoint presentation of 'Manly Resolve.' All of the men applauded the part about rising land values and seemed congratulatory to Ralph that his fancy porch had been admired by magazines and Realtors.
 
Bill then turned the machine off, took a drink of water and said, ’If we work together we can become very wealthy men and every dream you’ve ever wanted will be yours to command. However, we can’t keep making sudden decision about our children. We need to develop reason and criteria to make one of our fine family’s tax bill use its last exemption for the child or person.' Including the word person rather escalated the debate towards general approval  and widened the data base of who’s name could be chiseled on the tombstone.

‘This is serious business,’ exclaimed an enthusiastic sounding Bill, continuing; ’We, like our Founding Fathers, need to debate and decide the merits of any of our requests for a child to be permanently excluded from the nest. I suggest our rules be flexible so there is no waiting that may cause tension to normal community activities unless an objection is raised or the case a borderline request.’ A committee was then formed and it took them five weeks to get the rules put into correct grammar. Everyone then voted on this ’Child Left Behind’ charter and it was unanimously approached.

Bill said, Gentleman, this an historic day. We have the will, but not exactly the way to do a family pruning. We need to make sure there is no clue of suspicion.’ A committee was formed and they used both old and new technology to hide their dirty deeds: But then another bout of jealousy caused the most despicable actions, if proved, this world has often seen.