Word Problem

                                    

                                          
I thought: Here's a word problem for the mogul. Given that songbirds nested in the apple tree's branches, and given that the shy opossum ate the tree's fallen fruit and used the fallen leaves to line its den, and given that bees made honey from the tree's flowers (honey which pleased both people and pooh-bears), and given that the sweet smell of the tree's ripe fruit attracted fruit flies, which attracted bats, which feasted on the fruit flies and also mosquitoes and other pesky disease-carrying bugs . . . Mogul: given all these variables, bugs, bats, birds, people, possum, poohs-what's the equation to determine the positive value of the apple tree? Solve for x.
                          
To the mogul this would be a trick question, because the apple tree had negative value. It was in the way. The mogul figured, x = the cost of the machines and labor that would be needed to saw the tree to the ground, chop its stump, and dig up its stubborn hundred-year-old roots, plus the cost of dragging the tree's corpse to the dump.
                          
So. I told the mogul I was afraid he'd made an unfortunate error in math. He'd been calculating "value" via base ten times base money . . . which was the wrong base altogether.
                          
And because of this error, he couldn't see that he didn't have the means to buy me out, and he never would.
                          
Because, the thing is: I was only poor on the outside. Where it doesn't count.