 But he does try hard."Got an idea, guys," he said. He swept his
necktie out of the way so he wouldn't accidentally butter it. "A
contest."
"Like the knife-sharpening contest you thought up, Del?"
"No, Doc. That didn't pan out. See, what I'm thinking is, we
should play to our strengths here. You know, delve into our pluses,
put our minuses on a shelf somewhere, and show the world what we do
best!"
"Drink coffee?"
"Of course not, Steve! I mean, we need to hold a liar's contest!"
Dead silence. All eyes on Delbert.
He looked around at all the solemn faces.
"You know what I mean ..."
More solemnity.
"It could really draw crowds."
Then Doc, our unofficial spokesman because he has more degrees
than a thermometer, spoke up.
"And just who would the liars be?"
"Well ... you know, like Steve here. Remember, Steve, when you
said you once rode a bucking horse while sitting backwards on it?
Things like that."
"I did that, Delbert," Steve said.
"I saw him do that," Dud said.
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column] |
"Oh. Well, Dewey once told me he'd put a cow into the branches of
a tree. We could start off with something like that."
"Three of us were there when Dewey did that," Steve said. "Ran
that cow off a little bluff. We had to cut the tree down."
Delbert sipped his coffee and ate a slice of toast. He'd
forgotten to put any jelly on it, too.
"Doc's squirrel?" Delbert said.
Now Doc's fictitious squirrel, Chipper, was a lie. But it was the
kind of lie that takes on a life of its own until ... well ...
"You talking about Chipper?" Dud asked.
"If that's his name," Delbert said.
"How is ol' Chip, anyway, Doc?" asked Steve.
"Doing OK. Sleeps a lot these days. Hibernation, you know."
Delbert left a tip and got up to go pay. They waited until he was
gone before laughing.
[Text from file received from Slim Randles]
Read free samples of Slim's books at
www.slimrandles.com.
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