LITMIR.BIZ

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I’m trying to pull difficult concepts out of the vapors. “Turkeys have many bones, Drover, and the amazing thing is that they all fit together. If the bones didn’t fit together and work in harmony, turkeys wouldn’t be able to walk.”

      “Yeah, or play the drums.”

      “Drums?”

      “Yeah, every turkey has two drumsticks.”

      “That’s an interesting point. I’ve heard them cluck and chatter, but I can’t say that I’ve ever heard them drumming.”

      “Maybe they do it in the middle of the night, when we’re asleep.”

      “I doubt that, son. I seldom sleep through the night. If I’m not out doing patrols, I’m at my desk, trying to catch up on paperwork. When you’re Head of Ranch Security, the work never ends.”

      He yawned. “Yeah, and maybe we ought to go back to bed.”

      I stopped pacing and studied the runt. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. If we dogs don’t protect ourselves against stress and over-work, who will?” I marched back to my gunny sack, scratched it up, did the Three Turns maneuver, and flopped down. “We’ll regroup at oh-eleven hundred hours. Good night.”

      “Nighty night.”

      I stretched out my weary body and surrendered myself to the powerful gravitational pull of my gunny sack bed. I lay there for two minutes, then sat up. “Drover, my bed smells so bad, I can’t sleep. How about you?”

      “Murgle skiffer porkchop.”

      “I agree.” I leaped out of bed. “I’ve had enough of this. By George, if the people on this ranch are too cheap to buy new bedding for the Security Division, maybe it’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.”

      “Furry little turnip tops.”

      “Unless we rise up in anger, the conditions around here will never improve. Stand by for action, son, we’re fixing to tear this place apart!”

      Boy, you should have been there to see it. We had ourselves a riot on the ranch, and we’re talking about some serious ripping and tearing of the bedding. Once the terrible anger had begun to flow, it became a raging river and there was no force on earth that could have stopped it.

      Birds quit singing. Rabbits ran for cover. Cattle and horses broke and ran in a wild stampede. Turkeys huddled in their roosting trees and turned their eyes away from the billows of black smoke rising from the ruins of the Security Division’s Vast Office Complex.

      It went on for days…or maybe hours. Okay, it went on for ten minutes, until the terrible rage had finally burned itself out. Callous neglect had pushed us over the edge of the brink and we had by George ripped up our stinking beds into piles of rags.

      I was panting for air and standing over the ruins of my gunny sack bed, when I heard a voice behind me.

      It said, “What are you doing?”

      Slowly, I turned my head and saw…Drover. He was staring at the rubble that had once been my bed. “We rioted against injustice and neglect and intolerable conditions, but I thought…” His gunny sack appeared to be undamaged. “You didn’t riot?”

      “No, I guess I was asleep, but I wondered what all the noise was about.”

      “It was about empowering dogs, Drover, and I can’t believe you slept through such an historic event. This ranch will never be the same again.”

      “Yeah, ‘cause now you’re going to be sleeping on a pile of rags.”

      “That was the whole point. It was a protest.”

      “Yeah, but who was listening?”

      That question hung in the air for a long, throbbing moment. When nobody answered, I walked back to my former bed and began sifting through the rubble, a hundred and twenty-seven shreds of burlap and a bunch of loose threads. I scraped them into a pile and sat down on them. They were lumpy and I could feel the cold ground beneath them, and they still stunk. Stank.

      “Drover, it’s possible that I acted in haste. Or, to come at it from a slightly different angle, you shouldn’t have allowed me to do this.”

      “I was asleep.”

      “Exactly, and that’s my whole point. At the very moment when I needed you most, you abandoned me, but I’ll try to forget about it.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Once we swap beds.”

      “Forget that.”

      “It’s really the only decent course of action.”

      “Nope.”

      “I might even throw in a bone to sweeten the deal.”

      “No thanks.”

      “And one day’s Scrap Rights.”

      “Nope.”

      “All right, then we’ll have to share your bed.”

      “I’d rather not.”

      I was trembling with righteous anger. “You mean you’d actually allow the Head of Ranch Security to sleep on rags? Is that the kind of friend you’ve turned out to be?”

      He thought about that and grinned. “Yep.”

      For a moment, I was speechless. “Then keep your stinking bed and see if I care. I have plenty of friends, and they would be honored to share their beds with me.”

      “That’s nice.”

      “Traitor!” I whirled around and stormed out of the office.

      Chapter Two: Thinking About Food

      One of the most discouraging parts of this job is that, after you spend years trying to set a good example for the employees, you find that they’re just as selfish and greedy as they were before.

      My assistant, Drover C. Dog, had become the most recent example of this slide into something-or-otherness. The nerve of the little pipsqueak! First he sat there and watched while I destroyed my bed, then he refused to share his possessions with the victim of a disaster.

      I know I shouldn’t let these things upset me, but they do. When you care about your employees, and I mean really care, it hurts when they let you down. Sometimes I’m tempted to lower my standards and accept that the world is a rotten place, full of selfish dogs and people, but I’ve never been able to pull that off.

      Like a fool, I continue to hope, and it brings a lot of sadness into my life. Oh well. A guy must trudge on to the next chapter of his life, nursing the slender flame of hope.

      Actually, that conversation with Drover had yielded a few shreds of good information. Perhaps you missed them, so let me give a quick review.

      First, he had blurted out the fact that tomorrow, our people would observe the Christmas holiday. Second, he had pointed out one of the crucial differences between Christmas and every other day of the year: an evening Scrap Event that always produced an abundance of turkey bones and turkey skin, as well as occasional offerings of mashed potatoes, turkey dressing, turkey gravy, and even a few random bites of punkin pie.

      Slurp. Sorry. The memory of past Christmas Scrap Events caused the slobbalary glands in my mouth to gush water, forcing me to lick my chops and make slurping sounds.

      Slurp. See what I mean? It’s funny how that works. A guy doesn’t even have to see or smell the turkey-related material. Just the thought brings forth…slurp slop glop…it’s a little

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