As Mrs. Storekeep sprinkled sawdust on the old wooden floors in preparation for the morning’s sweep-up, she inadvertently — it would seem — dropped a bit of dust on the polished shoes of the curmudgeon.
At first he glanced up at the ceiling with a purely pained expression, then stared straight ahead at a cunning display of cat and dog food, and finally looked down on his shoe tips and said:
“Why don’t you watch what you’re doing?”
“Apologies,” she answered, “but I thought you had given up talking for the duration of this summer’s politicking?”
“I did, but how long can a man fight history without giving in a little?”
“Well, anyway, welcome back to the land of the living,” she said and continued on her morning dust patrol.
The Curmudgeon then walked over to the coffee pot — it shared space with a paper plate piled high with sugar donuts — to engage in conversation with a local member of the ambulance corps, the shoe salesman from Atlanta, and the Storekeep himself.
“You know when I made those remarks the other day about all the stuff on the web and the supermarket dailies that is incorrect and its relevance to national trends — especially elections — I just remembered a political trip to Raleigh our local lodge, The Peripatetic Whistlers, made some time ago.
“You know when driving on I-40 any trip seems to last forever, well the only thing that anyone had along to look at was one copy of The Enquirer that a previous passenger had left on the back seat. To make a long story shorter and to help in passing time, one of the members suggested that we all try to guess the headline of the story on the following page.
“Now that kind of game is not easy when reading a front page story that boasts a headline: “My Wife Can Never Leave Home When the Moon Shines! Read the intimate story of a woman who is suffering with poison from the moon.
“Or the great story on page 3, “Columbian Woman Gives Birth to Octuplets.” This followed by a two-page spread, “Fortune Teller Predicts that Cuba Will Invade Detroit.
“Coming up was page 4, so who can guess the headline?”
“Spider Saves Family of Five from Fire,” said Max.
“From the Hollywood records, it’s reported that “Tyrone Power Once Married to Marjorie Maine,” said Frank.
“Frankfurters Found to Shorten Life,” said Bill.
“Entire Florida Orange Crop Eaten by Frogs,” quipped Curmudgeon then turned the page to read: ‘Russian Count Proves He’s 500 Years old.’ Guess we all missed on that one.”
“So what was the end of the game?” they all asked together.
“We continued,” said the Curmudgeon, “‘til we reached page 48, and everyone took one last chance at guessing. I don’t even remember the headline we were guessing about but I’ll never forget what the last page story said.”
“What?” asked the Ambulance Corps member.
“‘My Dog Was Buried Alive by an Armadillo’ is the headline that topped a picture of a small and grateful dog, lying on the edge of a shovel that in turn rested by the side of a newly dead armadillo.
“We made the rest of the trip in silence… never played the game again.”