Where there’s a will but no way

Every week it seems that Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie get into some kind of shenanigans of one type or another. I am not sure if it's due to the fact that we go out of our way to maybe find such hijinks or others come looking for us and involve us in their schemes.

But regardless, this past week Ol’ Dutch pulled a good one and got us into a high-pressure sales meeting all due to the promise of a good meal. I mean honestly. Who could resist the flashy ad on the Internet promising tasty fajitas and drinks at a nice sit-down restaurant. I mean how bad could it be, right?

Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize winning economist, coined the phrase “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” in his novel, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”

And that little bit of information is your fact of the week that you can use at your next coffee klatch, quilting bee or at the water cooler at work to break the ice. You’re welcome.

And his premise that no matter what you think you get for free there is a hook in it that later may end up costing you more than you bargained for. But Ol’ Dutch ever the beaming optimist – Miss Trixie really needs help with that incessant eye rolling when I speak such wisdom – signed us up.

Now Ol’ Dutch knew ahead of time that a presentation was going to be made about wills and trusts and I was interested to find out more of such things. But the “hook” in this meal was quite a bit larger than I was counting on and soon it felt like I had swallowed one intended for whales.

The chips now gone, a lawyer out of Fort Worth began his presentation and I have to say, other than Ol’ Dutch himself, he was about as slick as they come. Every other sentence he would do a kind of dip with his legs I guess to emphasize what he was saying, or he was suffering from eating too much Mexican food and had the fast trots needing the restroom.

But diarrhea aside, story after story sprung from his lips about poor old Harold and Edna or Bill and Mary who waited too long to get a will or a trust and thereby lost all they had waiting for death at the nursing home.

As I gazed around the room, I could see it was having an effect on people who were attending the event. But more than that, the meeting was so long that another effect soon began to take hold and that was the dreaded curse of the old bladder.

I am not sure who taught the guy about presentations, but any smart preacher knows that after about 20 minutes of a sermon you have lost your crowd. At that point they are ready to head out to the local Cracker Barrel with a stop at the closest rest room on the way to the car.

So, as we sat and patiently listened to his stories, people across the room began to get up and cripple their way through the crowd toward the john. This led to what is known as sympathy peeing as more and more people felt the urge to go just because they saw old Joe get up and go.

Now I don't need a lawyer very often but when I do, I don't hire one at a local Mexican food joint. And, with the latest catastrophe about FTX and Sam Fried scamming people out of money in the crypto world, I was more than a little skeptical about some guy just taking the money and running.

He was smart. I give him that. As it only took him about 15 seconds of talking to me to realize that Ol’ Dutch is Scottish by descent and tighter than bark on a tree and was not going to write a check or cough up any cash at least on that day. But all's well that ends well and we finally got a table full of steaming fajitas with a nice complimentary dessert to boot.

Maybe Milton Friedman was right about no free lunch in most instances but Ol’ Dutch and Miss Trixie came away unscathed in this deal with full bellies and full pocketbooks.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com.