The Humorous Flowerpot Painting

It was a cold and arid night in the office. Greg took out his handkerchief and noticed a small blemish on it, clearly left over from when he abruptly polished his laptop screen right before his interview with Helen Sniff. Helen Sniff was the leading manager at Exciting Systems and builds hospital grade equipment for her staff who work with Roy and Paco, two men in their early twenties, but are the managers of an exciting new company known as No Tengas Dinero, No hay Problema which is dedicated to helping people move out of financial bankruptcy. Greg knew that the interview could have gone better with Helen Sniff, because he stumbled with some words in the interview. He wasn’t sure if someone at No Tengas Dinero, No Hay Problema would call him that night, but he decided that tomorrow would be a bright new day, full of mystery and intrigue. It would be tomorrow that Greg would attend a seminar about how to get out of financial bankruptcy by Mr Mugiwagi, who is a lecturer in International Relations and Sociology at the University of Madrid.

Greg woke up, pressed the stop button on his alarm clock (yes, Greg’s old school) and jumped out of bed. With a slight level of enthusiasm and with little intrigue Greg put his trousers on and hopped to the kitchen where he poured himself a nice cuppa of Old Jo… “Well, today should be interesting…” whispered Greg to his wife Anayo. “Sure”, said Ayano with a raised eyebrow. “Hopefully we’ll be out of bankruptcy by tonight so that I can spend my money on a new bowl of ramen which I would like to buy from Grand Master Chans”. Approximately 2 minutes’ walk from their house in central Madrid (or were they living in Madrid, Tokyo or Melbourne, who knows…).

2 hours later….

“Hi“, said Greg, as he spoke to the receptionist…

“Hi! Are you here for Mr Muriwai’s talk on how to get out of financial bankruptcy?”

“Yes, will the talk be in Spanish, Japanese or English today mam?”

“You’ll find out, here’s your pass, enjoy the talk!”

At this point, Greg felt a little hungry, yet highly intrigued and excited about the talk. Perhaps he would buy a bowl of ramen tonight too with Ayano, who knows…

“Welcome!” Said Mr Mugiwagi as people started to filter through the doors of the emporium. “Welcome!” Yes, welcome! Welcome!

“Well, this seems weird“, Greg thought, he just keeps saying welcome.

In a loud booming voice… “Volunteering is contagious, but I have found over the years that having a strong interest in the world’s languages and a sense of humour means that you have the opportunity, not to invest, or anything of that nature, but the key to achieving no bankruptcy is to stop caring about money altogether. Pretend money doesn’t exist, money is dirty, smelly, and makes people thirsty, if not hungry, so forget money.

Instead, I want you to picture a vase of flowers in a picture frame, drawn onto paper with watercolour draping colours all over the painting. This is how you make money, through art.

Thank you for coming to the talk“.

20 minutes later, Ayano started calling Greg. Greg picked up the phone and spoke to Ayano about how the talk went. Greg whispered, “very, very awful… I can’t even draw a stick figure. Just kidding, the talk went great, I feel inspired.”

And that is the story of The Humorous Flowerpot Painting.