The Buckets by Greg Cravens for April 17, 2021

Good bit of big brother mentoring there. A practical solution that cannot harm anyone.

In our house we crinkle a potato chip bag when we want the dog to come-a-runnin’.

I just have to open a drawer in the kitchen where I keep my wallet. I go so few places that he assumes it’s a trip to the grocery for curbside, and he gets to ride along on those.

When we first moved, Sheela would disappear. We finally got a wifi tag for her – she was going under the deck.

The torch has been passed.

How does one look “hard”.. don’t blink? Like praying, how does one do that hard, is it like being constipated?

Yepper; that would work!

But there’s the thrill of the hunt.

Dogzilla: “Hey that’s cheatin’, like faking throwing the ball.”

When I was a paperboy I had one customer who was 2 months behind on their bill, which is a lot of money for a teenager. One day when I was out collecting I got to their house and I noticed that someone was stretched out on the couch so I got excited because someone was finally home so I’d be able to get my money. But they didn’t move when I knocked on the door (for future refererence the couch was in plain view through their picture window and their curtain was fully drawn). After 3 attempts at knocking on the door of the front porch I realized that they must be asleep and didn’t hear me knocking so I started to turn to go when I saw their dog walk into the living room and come up to press his nose against the picture window. For a second I was torn, I didn’t really want to wake someone up from their nap, but this was the first time I’d seen anyone home in 2 months, so I tapped on the glass and the dog started barking his head off. I turned to look at the couch and I saw 2 people jump off the couch and run into another room, I didn’t have a good look, but it looked like a man and a woman and they were both grabbing at things to cover up as they scooted out of the living room.When the guy came to the door a couple minutes later in a robe I tried to collect for the 2 months he owed but he canceled the paper and told me to come back Weds because he didn’t have any money on him. So I went back Weds, no one home, Thurs, no one home, Friday, no one home, a week later, no one home, 2 weeks later, no one home. 3 weeks later I’m riding by and I see 2 cars parked in the driveway so I went up and knocked on the door. An older man I’d never seen before answers the door, sees my paper bag and says, “I’m so glad you’re here, we just moved in and we want home delivery.” So, I got a new customer who always paid on time, but lost out on the 2 months the other customer owed me.

Our dog doesn’t always come in when we call him verbally, but closing the door loudly gets him every time.

That dog looks like it was designed by Picasso.