Once upon a time, there grew a whole garden full of brightly colored variegated blossoming tubas who desperately wanted to be noticed and plucked. Each day, the tubas would stretch their colorful horns long and straight, and blow themselves silly into the crisp afternoon air. Inside, they hopped that someone would hear their tooting and rush to pluck them, or at the least tell them how elegant they appeared. Now, as you can imagine, the clamor of an entire garden of tubas bellowing at once was quite deafening, and as a rule, anyone passing by would plug their ears and cringe. After a time, when no one would show, the tubas would nod their bobbing horns at one another and say, "Well, surely someone will visit tomorrow. The only good way to attract attention is to be loud and aggressive. We're certainly being loud, so we're bound to sell ourselves."
Now, right next to the variegated tubas, hidden beneath a bush, was a weed bed where one stray fluted tulip lived. An odd plant, she shimmered like black velvet. She was a prize to anyone who should pluck her. She too wished to be picked before fall settled in, but the ruckus of the variegated tubas not only drowned out her singing, but hurt her ears and caused her to quiver in her roots. So, she decided to sing by herself, far into the night. Her song was a soft compelling croon which bespoke of magic and lulled its listener into happiness; a non-traditional lure perhaps, but because she cared more about singing to the stars than catching a "plucker", her song was all the more sincere, all the more alluring. "I'll never be plucked," she'd sign, "but at least I know my own song, and I'm an individual," and she'd stand a little taller and croon to the rinsing moon.
Well this went on for several weeks. The tubas' petals were getting rather worn from blowing so hard and loud. The tulip, on the other hand, had acquired an audience. The animals of the forest, sharing her love of the evening, would gather around her at dusk and join her in a sweet lullaby.
As fall neared, the first frost penetrated the earth and the gardens began to wilt. The tubas, their lips pretty well shot where barely still standing. The tulip could still sing quite well, but the frost hit her hared and she no longer looked like sleek velvet. Still, she felt sorry for the tubas, so she sang not only to the animals but also to them.
On the last day before the harvest moon and a killing frost, the tubas said goodbye to one another. They wouldn't last the night. Evening approached, the sun set. The tulip watched the twilight creeping forward for the last time. Suddenly, there was a scuffling around her roots. her friends, the animals were digging her up to store her for the following year. She would see spring. And so as the harvest moon crept to its zenith, and the garden folded its arms for winter, a wise old owl hooted upon the breeze....
"Sometimes its not always good to toot your own horn like everyone else. Be yourself. Wait until there is someone worth-while listening before wasting your lips."