On this day…I was called a liar.
What had begun as a routine delivery in the hills outside of Newberg, Oregon quickly degenerated into a misunderstanding of epic proportions that threatened to derail the entire delivery.
The fault was not mine. Reaching into the treat box, I had proceeded to pay the obligatory biscuit toll by tossing it out the door as I had done many times before. But on this occasion, fate intervened. My aim was slightly off, causing the aforementioned cookie to ricochet off of the side of the door frame, only to land squarely between the shoulder blades of its intended recipient.
Baffled and befuddled, this bewildered beggar blithely bore the burden of the biscuit upon his back while barking and baying its disbelief that said biscuit was ever offered to begin with.
The result…was a standoff between yours truly and this furious four-legged feigner of famine who refused to step aside until such time as the requisite payment was made. I faced a dilemma; either cede to his unreasonable expectations and set the stage for the inevitable escalation of his dietary demands, or hold firm on principle and refuse to budge. The former option was the equivalent of capitulation, while the latter would put me at risk of getting further behind on my deliveries. After careful consideration, it became clear to me that my duty to my customers outweighed my duty to a mere dog and that, if I were quick, I could simply retrieve they wayward biscuit off of its back while it was busy eating the second one, thereby avoiding a precedent for future extortion. Filled with pride at my shrewd strategy, I proceeded to step out of the truck with a biscuit in one hand, ready to snatch my original errant offering off of his back with the other….when I got played. This canine con artist had been fully aware of the location of the first biscuit the entire time; upon seeing the one in my hand he proceeded to flip the first one up into the air, catch it, snatch the second biscuit out of my grasp, and bolt quickly out of my reach with his mouthful of ill-gotten gains. On this day I learned a bitter truth; you can’t bamboozle a bamboozler!
By Scott Hodges
