A Payment Strategy

I also knew of a fiddler who kept a rattlesnake rattle in the body of his instrument.

"If my employer delays payment after a show," he said, "I tell him, 'Well I can wait, but Lightning here insists on being fed regular-like.'

"Then I shake the rattle out of the fiddle body. When the rattle appears by itself I exclaim,'Oh no! He must've gotten tired of waiting to be fed and gone off in search of somethin' to eat!'

"I tell my debtor that Lightning is a special breed of rattlesnake known as a Shanghai rattler -- very fast, but luckily fond of bacon and human legs," said the fiddler.

"I tell him to set traps around both pigs and humans, if he wants the best chance of recapturing the fellow."

"Then I add that I would help, but I, too, must seek sustenance elsewhere, and I take my leave.

"This rarely fails to produce payment, plus some cured pork."

The fiddler appeared to be well-fed and was wearing a new suit and pair of shoes, unlike most of those in his profession whom I have seen wandering from town to town and job to job.

To which, dear Reader, I add the following: If you can lay on the ham, you'll always bring home the bacon.


Copyright © 2012 Laurie J. Anderson. All rights reserved.