When you need a critter festival or something

“Good morn­ing, boys!” said Del­bert McLain, glad-handing the reg­u­lar mem­bers of the world-dilemma think tank at the Mule Barn truck stop’s phi­los­o­phy counter. “I need your advice.”

Well, when the direc­tor (make that “sole employee”) of our local Cham­ber of Com­merce needs advice from the best minds in the county, he’d nat­u­rally show up here in his white shirt and tie to learn from the best.

We all sat up a bit straighter and adjusted our gimme caps to a jaun­tier angle. In sit­u­a­tions like this, Doc is our usual spokesman, hav­ing more ini­tials behind his name than the rest of us.

“We’re here,” said Doc, “our advice is free and worth every penny, and our atten­tion is focused solely on you, Del­bert ol’ boy. What’s up?”

“Boys, we need a cel­e­bra­tion, a fes­ti­val, a real humdinger of a blow-out.”

“And you need me to play the accor­dion?” said Dud.

“No, Dud,” said Steve. “I think the idea is to attract peo­ple to come to it.”

“That’s right,” Del­bert said, grin­ning. “We need some­thing really unique to bring peo­ple here. Calav­eras County has its frog jump­ing, Mojave has tur­tle races, Hink­ley has buz­zards. Dem­ing has duck races. Anchor­age has an ugly dog con­test. We need some­thing to call our own. See what I mean?”

“A varmint-oriented whing-ding, as it were,” said Steve, nod­ding sagely beneath his cow­boy hat.

“Pre­cisely,” said Del­bert, grin­ning and rub­bing his hands.

“Relax,” said Dud. “You’ve come to the right place.”

And we sipped, and con­sid­ered, and broke down into actual thought.

“Are nude foot races out?” said Doc.

“Afraid so. Yes.”

“Bed bug jamboree?”

“No way, Dud.”

“Gopher golf? You know, hit the ball in gopher holes instead of on the course?” said Doc.

“Or,” sug­gested Steve, “a Who Flung Dung com­pe­ti­tion using sea­soned horse leav­ings. You know, sep­a­rate con­tests for accu­racy and distance.”

Del­bert looked at him. “You’re a sick puppy, Steve, you know that?”

“I’ve got it!” said Doc. “We could have a huge dance con­test where every­one dances with a drain pipe! Call it the Rol­lick­ing Run-Off Romp!”

Del­bert groaned. “I see we’ll have to open this idea to the public.”

Brought to you by Slim’s new book “A Cowboy’s Guide to Grow­ing Up Right.” Learn more at http://www.nmsantos.com/Slim/Slim.html.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Sep 19 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.