A picture's worth a thousand words...

When my mother passed away several years ago, the elderly single women in my step-father's community descended on him with a vengence. Seriously, he told me some stories and those women were aggressive!

Anyway, we were having a conversation about something that had happened and he told me this story about another man who had a similar situation....

It wasn't that the man wanted to live alone the rest of his life but he wanted the women to back off a bit. So he worked with his two hound dogs for a week or so to "perform" for him on cue. Then he invited one of the more aggressive women over for a home cooked meal.

He set the table and set out the food and they had a lovely dinner. Nice conversation - very pleasant evening.

At the end of the meal the lady stood up and started to pick up her dishes to carry over to the sink. "You don't have to do that," the man said. "I've got it covered." Then he whistled and called the dogs over.

The dogs promptly propped their front paws on the table and licked the dinner plates clean. The man then picked up the plates and put them in the cabinet.

She never bothered him again.

(Side note: My step-father said it took him a week to train the dogs to do that and six MONTHS to untrain them. ;-) )

So, when someone sent me this picture, it reminded me of that story.