Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for October 13, 2017

Teddy believes in the old sports dictum: If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’!

The pet store is just the trial run. If it works, Teddy is off to the butchers.

Teddy, I would not hold out a lot of hope.

Oh, he’s a customer all right, he just needs someone with a wallet in a back pocket to help him out.

Is Teddy related to Scooter? Does the Ballard purveyor of all things pets give out free samples? That may be Teddy’s game.

From outside the window, maybe….

A very short, shadowy figure in a fedora.

Reminds me a bit of those Spy vs. Spy agents in Mad magazine.

 

He hasn’t figured out the part where he somehow walks into the store….

though he does plan to ask his talented Uncle Scooter for help.

He has great faith in Uncle Scooter’s vast store of knowledge.

Good luck with that, Teddy!

 

P.S. Thanks everybody, for thinking about me yesterday…

Truth is, for the last couple of days so many people on different forums were asking me about the fires here,

that I spent way too much time writing about that,and couldn’t finish my comics “rounds.”

 

Before anybody asks tonight, let me just say nothing much has changed.

The big fire north of me in now considered “10% contained,” but I don’t know in what part,

and it’s still spreading, but so far not towards downtown or my place.

Thousands of homes, stores, and other buildings have burned…

Tens of thousands of people are displaced, if not by already losing their homes, by evacuation, waiting to find out.

 

I feel fortunate to live well south of the fire zone… not the best part of town, but at least still standing.

And I do have an offer of a couch to sleep on in the next county, if the wind does turn …

I sure hope that doesn’t happen….

but if it does I’ll let you all know.

 

Oh… and Happy, you asked somewhere about the Luther Burbank Center…

from what I’ve read the “campus” and some of the classrooms and outdoor art were damaged, but they think the main building is mostly OK.

It’s in the fire zone and remains closed, for now.

Teddy, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Teddy reminds me of Casey, a peripatetic Irish setter who owned a couple of friends of mine, years ago in Sedona. Casey was notorious for sneaking into the supermarket, selecting a can of his favorite dog food, and trotting home ( about 2 miles away ) ,carrying his purloined pooch provision securely in his mouth.

In those days, everyone knew each other and everybody knew Casey. On rainy days, people would often stop and offer him a ride home. He was grateful but never relinquished his prize. The supermarket manager simply kept a tab on the number of cans and my friends paid when they did their grocery shopping.

“Rowf rowf rrrrowf rowf (whine) rrrr.”

(Translation):

“Hey mister, buy me a big bag of kibble and I’ll pay you off in squeaky toys.”

That trick never works. Go with the big sad puppy eyes.