While on a walk, Fleegle trotting along at my side, we pass a man walking his dog. The dog pulls against a too short of a leash while the man stares at his phone with his head down and ear buds plugged into his ears.

“Why does that man have a dog?” Fleegle asks. “Is he walking his dog or his phone? Why doesn’t he put his television in a shopping cart and take it for a walk?”

“I hate to tell you this Fleegle, but he’s watching television on his phone.”

“No kidding? You can do that? Can you do that on your phone?”

“I’ve got an old phone,” I say.

“Well if you get a new one you’re going to wish you kept your old one.”

“Why?”

But Fleegle ignores my question as he sniffs at the base of a fire hydrant.

Continuing our walk, we pass a little boy and his mother sitting on a park bench licking ice cream cones.

“They live with a dog,” Fleegle says.

“How do you know? Do they smell like dog?”

“No, like cat, actually. But you saw how they licked at their ice cream.”

We pick up the pace and hurry passed a man with a very loud leaf blower. “Does that man live with a dog?” I ask.

Fleegle sniffs at the dust filled air. “Nah, he lives alone with his leaf blower. What dog would have him with all that racket? Just like his neighbor who lives alone with his lawn mower.”

We amble on some more when Fleegle says, “It’s good you have me along to answer all your questions. You must find life pretty challenging having more questions than answers.”

I drop his leash and point at a tree. “Look, Fleegle, squirrel.”

He darts to the base of the tree, circling and sniffing and looking all over. “Oh boy, a squirrel. Where is it? Where’s the squirrel?”

But there is no squirrel, just an outmaneuvered human lamely reasserting himself through trickery.

 

Next: Negotiating with Cookies #23 – Bribery

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Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt