a lot of people would pay to see ghostbusters iii

A breakthrough in training! Oedipus, the chihuahua-great-dane mix breed I have been training as a guard dog, foiled his first real burglary today! His exercise regimen consisted of my throwing bacon strips on small children who wandered away from their parents (they are a good starting size -- not too fast, and they won't fight back), but I was getting worried, because kids were beginning to avoid our street, and Oedipus still seemed to need a lot more practice.

However, today, we were at the bank depositing a ten dollar mail-in rebate that I got for buying fifty bags of "Dill Pickle" flavored Lays potato chips (what can I say? I am a sucker for things that have my second-grade nickname on them). Anywho, I am filling out my deposit slip, trying to decide how much cash back I should ask for, when a guy wearing a ski mask throws open the front door like he is walking into a saloon. He fires a gun in the air and uses his outside voice to tell us, "Nobody move! This is a stick-up!" and other bank-robbery cliches. We all had to give him our wallets, get face-down, and "taste the ground motherfuckers." This was not fun, and poor Oedipus was leashed to a bike rack outside, probably wondering whether I had dumped him for a declawed koala like I threatened because he was so bad at attacking preschoolers. The bank tellers dumped a bunch of money in a duffel bag the guy had, he fired a shot at the security guard's desk, just to show us he hated desks, and then he was out the door.

I know what you are thinking, but no Oedipus didn't take him out -- thank God. The dude was holding a gun for damn sakes! You don't make the jump from children to armed bank heisters in the time it took to build Rome. Actually, the man had left his car running outside for his get-away, but apparently somebody stole his car while he was robbing us! It was daylight, and the guy was wearing a ski mask and holding a gun. And a big sack of money. He was like a ninja dressed in black trying to sneak around a bakery. His only chance of a clean, flour-free getaway was if the cops saw him, but concluded, "Naw, it's too obvious, no bank robber would actually be walking around looking like a bank robber!" So what does he do? He tries to come back in the bank! But the security guard was pretty fast, and had pressed some secret button that automatically locked the front doors. We got to watch from behind bulletproof glass as the police came and arrested the guy. We even got our wallets back right there! No paperwork or anything! To top it off, the bank finished depositing my three dollars (I decided on seven bucks cash back) after the cops were done.

On the way home, we passed an ice cream truck, and I stopped to get Oedipus a treat for having to wait outside during the whole ordeal. A lot of kids had crowded around the truck, and one big bully kid was pushing the other children and trying to take their money. None of the kids were defending themselves, and it looked like the ice cream man didn't care, as long as the bully used all his ill-gotten gains on desserts. Oedipus knew that this was the moment he had trained for, so he didn't even hesitate when I told him, "Oedipus, clear out these kids." He went straight for the smallest one he could find, just like I taught him, and the other kids all ran away screaming. They were probably pretty thankful that we stopped that bully before he could steal more of their money, and we got our ice cream with no wait. I also bought an Ecto-Cooler, Ghostbusters-style, which I didn't know they still made.

dls