Old Dog of a Thing

It’s ugly. I know it is. It has to be. “The Boss” said it was. So there ya go.


Sitting there in the refuge store, the light was dim. I didn’t see it at first. Others were scattered around. Mostly each was sitting off toward different corners. It was kind of sad looking, really. That is not exactly the truth. It was real sad looking. An old yellow dog, of a thing. Sometimes you can see past the scars the patchy spots and a whole array of imperfections. What the heck. Walking over toward it, I could see there was a little life, a spark, as someone might say, left in its old coat. Rustling my hand back and forth across its coat, I could see that a new “do” might bring out the luster. Goodness knows it couldn’t hurt

“How much for this poor ole’peek-id thing?”. The nice lady handed me a cup of freshly brewed coffee as her eyes sadly look it over. I could tell she seemed to have some sort of attachment.

“Sixty Dollars. That should be a fair price.” She pretended to be writing something on a note pad but out of the corner of my eye I could see she was watching me out of the corner of her eye. A line from a Billy Joe Shaver song came to mind….”I saw you looking at me while I was watching you, a’looking at me” or that is pretty close. Sorry Billy Joe.

I guess my grunt and reflexive inhale cause her to suspect my doubts in the worth of sixty dollars, because before I could give an answer of any kind, she added.

“Well, if you will provide a good home, I will drop the price to fifty dollars.”

“Ok, I will pull my pickup around back and make it easier to load.” I gave her two twenty-dollar bills and a ten. One more glance and with a shaking of my head I went out the front door and got in my pickup. Have you ever done something and as soon as the trap door snaps shut you think, “Why in the world did I make that decision?”

“Hey there, Ms Boss, come look what I found today.” Apprehension hung in the air like Spanish moss. “Whadda ya think?”

The way she cut her eyes back and forth at me and then again gave away her secret.

“Uhhh, where you going to keep that thing? Are you planning on keeping it in the house?” Eyes cutting back and forth.

“Well, I guess I can take it out to the manufacturing plant and try to clean it up a little.”

“I think that is a great idea. You always come up with just the right solution.” The Boss cut her eyes back around at me one more time while she was walking back into the house.

It took a week of serious work over but “The Boss” finally let me carry it in the house for a test to see how it behaved. The jury might still be out on whether it gets to stay or not.

(BEFORE,,late upload of pic)

What do ya’ll think?



The Boss and I both think the vote is still out,,lol,, but I had a good time "messin" with it.