Little Julius McGrasscutter mows 12 lawns per week, as part of his burgeoning landscaping business. The residents love the ambitious little McGrasscutter: he’s efficient, he charges a reasonable rate to the neighborhood association and — besides an incident with the Johnson’s cat — he has done little wrong.

Unfortunately, because of the recent recession, Mr. McGrasscutter’s job at the lawnmower factory was cut and he has decided to take a new job as a llama herder several states away.

Distraught, the residents have turned to another young man who recently moved into the area. Eight of the households decided to hire Derek Schnauser (the other four outsourced). The problem? Schnauser wants to charge the neighborhood association 30 percent more money to mow four fewer lawns.

The residents begrudgingly agree, because, they learn, Schnauser has a great reputation and he was able to increase to property value of his previous customers.

Ultimately, overconfident and overexperienced, Schnauser abandoned this new neighborhood for a consulting position at a gated community landscaping firm. But not after he killed the Johnson’s other cat. The lawns returned to their state of disarray and the neighborhood association did not have enough capital left to hire anyone new.    

The moral of the story? It is never wise to pay someone more money to perform fewer duties.

You might be asking, “Is Julius McGrasscutter supposed to represent Kirby Hocutt?” Of course not, that’s ridiculous. Hocutt is a grown man and he had nothing to do with the death of the Johnson’s cat.

But, I suppose, he does in a grander scale. Ohio University recently announced it hired Jim Schaus to take over the scandal-ridden Athletics Department. He will earn an annual salary of $225,000, almost $50,000 more than his predecessor earned — a predecessor who had to oversee four additional sports, which have since been cut.

Maybe he’ll perform the same sort of financial turnaround he accomplished at Wichita State, the deficit-to-surplus magic that a certain university president hasn’t stopped trumpeting.

Then again, maybe he’ll just kill your cat.

Justin Thompson is a senior journalism major. Send him an e-mail at jt315004@ohiou.edu.