A valuable lesson

Here's a short interest piece as a break from the 'kihon in judo' thread (that I'm not through beating to death yet).


A while back I was sitting at the feet of the old masters. No, not the martial arts masters. I was actually eating lunch with an old law enforcement guy and an old physician. Each has been involved in his respective profession longer than I’ve been alive – so they qualify as old masters.

One was telling a story about the “old days.” They knew of this mom & pop country convenience store where the storeowner was a crotchety old guy who kept a pistol and showed it to everyone that he spoke to. One day the law enforcement guy got a call saying that this store owner’s establishment had been robbed, so he drove out there figuring to have to pick up the corpse of the perpetrator. When he got there the robbers were gone and he proceeded to get the story. A couple of guys had pulled up, gotten some gasoline, come in and picked up some food.

“Y’all goin hunting?” The storeowner asked, looking at the food they’d selected.

“Nope,” one of them said, pulling a pistol. “We on the run – give us your money!”

The crotchety old gun owner meekly handed over the money and they went on their way. The Law man was confused, and asked, “Didn’t you have your pistol on you?”

“Well, I got to looking down the barrel of that guy’s gun,” replied the storeowner. “And I couldn’t remember if I’d re-loaded the damn thing after I cleaned it yesterday. So I didn’t even pull it.”

“Damn good thing he didn’t pull it,” agreed the old doctor and the old law man.