Deena came home last night. She’s getting her wisdom teeth pulled this morning. Fun having her for dinner with Tommy. Laughed and watched their favorite show “Jackass,” which is a tad too asinine for my tastes but I would never tell them that.
Got inspired to do a card sharp feature by an item in Bottom Line, a newsletter Betty sent me. Here’s card sharp tactics: “Belly-stripping—the card sharp shaves a fraction of an inch off all but high cards. To detect it: Run your finger and thumb along the edge of the pack to determine if wider cards stick out. Shiners—tiny mirrors or polished objects used by crooked dealers to reflect players’ hands. Marking—a cheat nicks cards he gets early in a game to identify them later. Flaws—can be built into decks‚the cards are bought marked. To detect them: Hold the pack in one hand, and run your fingers lightly over the top in a fast riffle to see if the pattern jumps or swerves.” Need to call Shamie Maxwell, who supplied the card decks in “Gangs of New York” and get him to supplement the piece. Will make a nice potato chip.
You are looking into the eyes of a vicious killer. Look deep into those evil pools of brown. Yes, this is Peaches, the Chickenkiller. Hard to believe this sweet little girl lives to take down chickens, but she does. How did this happen? Well, I trained her. Not on purpose, mind you, but I might as well have sent her to The Advanced Art of Killing Chickens College. Here’s how it happened. About six years ago, we got a cute little puppy from a dairy out in Buckeye. She was a hyper little border collie puppy and went thru her playful, attack anything stage. Unfortunately, while she was in this stage, I didn’t realize how fast she was and she got around my legs one morning and got into the chicken house and jumped on a rooster, killing the startled cock almost immediately. Horrified, I mentioned this on the radio one day and a caller gave me a piece of advice on how to cure her of this.”Simply take the dead chicken” the expert caller told me, “and tie it around her neck. As the chicken decomposes and stinks, the dog will go crazy trying to get away but she can’t and will never even want to see another chicken.” Wow! That totally made sense. I couldn’t wait to try it and I didn’t have to wait long. About a week later, Peaches got into the chicken house and jumped on a brood of chicks. She killed two. I was so mad. I tied her up and went and got one of the former little chicks and got some twine out of the garage. First of all, I must tell you, tying the string around the little chick’s tiny legs wasn’t easy, then tying it around Peaches’ neck wasn’t a picnic either. When I finished, Peaches started running around the yard craning her neck and trying to get at the unwanted necklace. I laughed and thought it was all going to work like a charm, but in no time she managed to work her neck around to get the little dangling chick into her mouth. She kept it there and continued running around. When I called her, she gave me a look that said, “Hey thanks for the all day sucker!” Not exactly the effect I wanted. So I called my friend back and told him the odd twist to the curing exercise and he told me to put the dead chick up around on top of Peaches’ neck so she can’t get at it. So I went back out and chased her for about a half hour, finally grabbing her and managing to extract the chick out of her mouth (not an easy task either). She had pretty much devoured that bon bon, so I went back and got the other dead chick and went thru the same torture of tying the tiny, little legs to the twine, then tying that around Peaches’ neck and putting the little guy up on Peaches’ back. This worked for about 75 seconds, until our blind dog Toby came over and started munching on the chicken right off of Peaches’ back as if it were a buffet table. That was it. From that moment on, Peaches became a died in the fur chicken killer and I’m the one who trained her.
“Whenever I hear Pavlov's name, it rings a bell.”
—John Teets