The Great Migration

Centuries ago my ancestors lived in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. It was a simples life, until disaster struck. A great famine had come to the land. Kefentse Orlah and Seri bravely set off across the desert to find foods.

They walked for days and days, and the hunger grumble at them always. But as they came across wobbly thing in distance, they realize wobbly thing was the sea. At the shore, an old muskrat told them about beautiful far-off land full of grubs and beetles and grasshoppers called Bermudas. He sold them map and a boat to take there, and with great courageousness they stepped on board.

It took many months to cross sea. Then one day there was crunching noise. It was end of the ocean! The two tired travellers climbed slowly out of boat and crawl up to the shore… They were happy to be standing on solidness after so long, but Russia was a long way from Bermudas.

Kefense was cold and soggy, but did not give up. With other meerkats appearing on shore, he led them into mountains of Russia where in a valley of plentiful grubs they set up a village called Meerkovo. Life was simples again.

The Battle of Fearlessness 

Although my ancestors had escaped the hardship of the Kalahari, they could not escape the mongoose. Kefentse’s Great Grandson Vitaly was fearlessness and head of The Meerkat Home Guard. And marching towards Meerkovo was a vast horde of Mongolian mongooses, led by none other than Monghis Khan, the worsest mongoose of them all.

They outnumbered the meerkats 20-1, and out-stinked them at least 100-1, but the troops took heart from Vitaly’s brave words. Together, they faced the mongoose charge.

The battle last through the night. But by morning, Monghis Khan had turned tail. The horde was defeat.

It was a giant-size victory for the Meerkovo Home Guard. As a reward for Vitaly’s fearlessness, Czar Alexei the First present Vitaly with the Order of the Purple Claw, the most prestigious prize in Russia. He would also receive a great mansion-palace, built for him specials in Meerkovo.

Hard Times 

In Orlov family mansion, Vitaly busied himself with commissioning of many paintings for The Orlov Collection. Meanwhile, new wife Valentina busied herself with birthing of twin boy meerpups, called Ivan and Grigory.

Grigory was full of gratefulness and worked hard to make his parents proud. Ivan was different story. He did not share his brother’s sensibleness and was sneak out to visit the gambling dens of downtown Moscow. There he met seedy muskrats and played at cards with them. One day, after losing all his monies and both his boots, he bet the family mansion on his last claw of cards. He lost. Overnight, the Orlovs became poverty stricken. Ivan disappeared never to be seen of again.

Vitaly, Valentina and Grigory had to leave family mansion. Hidden in the countryside, they eventually came upon a humble gypsy camp. The gypsykats happily accepted them and the Orlovs settles into a simples life of grub farming.

During this time Gregory met Anastasia, a glamoursome gypsykat. They fall instantly head over heels in love, and soon Anastasia had a pup call Anton. But this happiness was not last for long. In Moscow, a nasty faction of government meerkats had decide to rid the country of gypsy camps. The ‘Furry Terror’ swept through the countrysides and hardworking gypsykats were sent to ghettos in the city.

Comparing Beginnings

Life in the ghetto was horribles, but Grigory and Anastasia worked hard to provide for Anton. One day, Anton and his school friend Stanislav went exploring boxes and discovered the many, many paintings of the The Orlov Collection.

Anton held them up for Stan and asked which one is better? Then it was Stan’s turn. They were very entertaining themselves and went on comparing meerkats until it was dark.

Anton was determined to prove there was something in his comparings, so one day in the middle of the night he fill his bag with all the paintings and ran away from home to make name for himself comparing meerkats in Moscow.

The Shop at Last

By now Anton was living in bedsit and making rubles as assistant to Great Furdini, disher washer at Hotel Sovieto Splendido and professional boxerkat. One day there was knock on door, when he opened it he saw familiar bedraggly face of Stanislav. Together they decided that they must set out to make their fortune comparing meerkats.

The next morning they loaded an old cart with meerkat paintings and made their way to Moscow flea market. But no one take much notice of comparethemeerkat.cart. To maintain business, they even had to let dirty old muskrats compare creepy muskrat paintings in seedy back alleys. It was shameful time.

Then one day along the street came Maxim Mandovich, Mayor of Moscow, and his beautiful daughter Valeria. She stopped in front of the comparethemeerkat.cart, and told Anton to hold up Soldierkat and Knightkat, two of the most handsome meerkats.

Holding paintings in his shaky paws, Anton await Valeria’s verdict. Imagine his astonish when she said, “the one in the middle”. Business went through the ceiling, and crowds came crowding in from miles around to see Anton and the faithful Stanislav compare meerkats. With new fortune, the two entrepreneurkats sold comparethemeerkat.cart and bought the first comparethemeerkat.shop.

Twentieth-Century Technology 

Along with success of my birth, Papa was having great successes with meerkat comparing business. However one day I got message that Papa is waking up with very bad headache that got worse and worse. The doctor was gloomy and say it all go back to his boxing days and there is not much he can do. I go straight home and sit with my Papa. We talk all night about his life and told lots of rude jokes about mongooses. By morning, it is all over. The curtain has come down on my Papa’s life.

And so begin my commitment to the family business. With help of Papa’s loyal assistant Stanislav, I learnt the business of meerkat comparison. I decide that business must be more twentieth-century and Stanislav suggest I work with his nephew. Stanislav’s nephew was Chief Designer of the Mir(kat) Space Program but was having to leave his job because he fake moon landing. So I invite him for chat.

Sergei told me all about his life which was not very interesting, but he also tell of new video inventions which would mean we could show comparing meerkats to people at home on their computermabobs. With Sergei as my official Information Technology manager, I settle him down in a small office at the back of storeroom, and buy him an enormous brand new computamamabob. Some weeks later he has ‘uploaded’ three meerkats ‘online’. When I look at screen I see vision of future. It is coming slowly, but it is the beginning of the business you know and love today.

Comparison Drama

It is long process, but Sergei finished putting all the paintings on the computermabob. Finally we ‘launch’ our ‘website’ on the internets and soon we have many peoples coming to site and say this is best meerkat comparing they have ever seen. After a year or so we are totally dominate the market. Then disaster stuck. (Again.)

One day Sergei come into my office looking panty and full of sweat. He tell me that he is having interferences on our website with people who are asking questions about the sport-back coupes and the ten-year-old estates.

When I inspect screen in IT department it is true. There are all these mongoose brains who are confusing ‘comparethemeerkat.com.au’ with ‘comparethemarket.com.au’. This is terrible threat to my business. And terrible insult to my ancestors. So I decide that I must teach these mongoose brains to know the difference between the two.