My cousin, Amara, is a newly wed. Mrs. Amara Willis, and Mr. Trent Willis, respectively. Last month was Trent's birthday. It was his first birthday they had spent together in, ever. Amara decided that she was willing to make the committment to get Trent two puppies for the occasion.

The first one, a chocolate lab, they named "Scout." The second, a yellow lab, they named, "Gundy." Both names had something to do with college football. An OU, or OSU fan could have said, and they told me, too, but it didn't matter what they named them in the end.

Amara and Trent live in a small town. Wheat fields surround their house, and during any time of the day you can hear locusts screaming like a spoon on a washboard. The second day they had the two dogs, Amara and Trent took them outside to play in the yard. There was a cottonwood tree behind their house, but there was no fence.

The dogs play their little hearts out, and slumped over for a nap. Amara brings the dogs inside and takes a good look at Gundy, the yellow lab. He is covered from head to toe with ticks. She masacred fifty ticks on account that the ticks were on the dogs.

The next day the dogs were prancing around the yard and panting their puppy breath. It wasn't until Trent and Amara took the dogs inside that they discovered that the problem not only persisted, but it had gotten worse.

The newlyweds spent three hours a night, for an entire week, picking ticks off their dogs. They would sift through the hair, find one, pluck it, smash it, swift again.

Finally Amara called the vetninarians around their small town. There were three vets in town, all of the conversations went like this:

Amara said, "Yes, my dogs have horrible ticks. And I need something to kill them."

The vetenarian would say, "Well, we don't sell anything to kill ticks. But we do sell something to make the ticks fall off of the dogs."

"Do you have a spray?" she said.

"Yes," the vetenarian said. "We've also got collars, and drops, and... Do your dogs get wet a lot?"

Amara said, "No."

"Well how old are they?" the vet would always ask.

"6 weeks old," Amara said.

"Oh, no," the vetenarian said. "You can't put anything on them until they are at least 8 weeks old. Do not put it on a dog that's less than 8 weeks old."

"Are you sure?" she said.

"Yes, very sure." The conversations ended there.

Amara was rung with grief. She had to help those dogs. The dynamic of a small town is perculiar to city dwellers. Everyone knows everyone. People see what you do. People tell people what you do. Everyone knows what you do, or have done. And to those who really don't know you, you are the person they think you are, no matter what you do, there is no shaking the stigma of a bad dicision.

Amara couldn't go to get the spray that would solve the tick problem because everyone knew she had 6 week old dogs. So she sent me.

I'm from out of town. I'm just visiting. I don't even care what these people think. I'm the perfect person for the job. She instructs me where to go. And I go to get the tick spray.

I walk into the vet's office, and say "Hello."

"Hello," the lady says. Her cat jumps onto the counter, and she pets her. "What can I help you with?"

"I need something for ticks," I say.

"How big is your dog?" she asks.

I say, "Oh, about this high." I raise my hand about six inches above the cat that she's petting.

She looks at me, and says, "We've got all types of stuff to get rid of ticks." She goes on and on, asks me if my dog gets wet a lot, same ol' story on the phone.

"I'll take the spray," I tell her.

"Alright," she says.

"How much is it?" I ask.

She says, "34 dollars." I am reaching for my wallet, and she says, "So what brings you to town?"

I say, "Family."

"Oh?" she says. "Who?"

I scrabble for words and say, "The Smiths." There are a billion Smiths in the world.

"Oh yeah?" she says, "Who?"

Off the top of my head, "Jerry Smith," I say.

"Really?" she says, "Jerry and Melonie?"

"Yep," I say. I'm putting the monie on the counter a bit nervously. I'm slightly waving it back and forth.

She says, "You must be married to one of their daughters."

I say, "Yes."

"I bet you're married too..." she says, "oh, what's her name?" She thinks for a second, looks around the room, and points at me. "I'm sure you know. What is her name?"

"Well if you don't know..." I say. I shrug at her.

She gives me a cock-eye, and makes change with my two twenty dollar bills. I smile as she hands it to me, and say, "I'll tell her you said 'hi.'"

I immediately told Amara what had happened, that I had to answer, and that I had said, "Jerry Smith," out of the clear blue sky.

Amara said, "I know Jerry Smith. That's the guy we get our tomatoes from. He's got four daughters," she said. "All but one has married, and moved away."

The next day Amara is going to buy tomatoes, and there I am, with her, walking up to Jerry Smith's house, and shaking Jerry Smith's hand. My cousin said to me as we left, "Was that the first time you met your father-in-law?"

Sadly, not three weeks after she put the tick medicine on the dogs, Gundy, the yellow lab, died. The weeks prior he had been moving around slowly, and we never saw him poop. Scout on the otherhand is still alive, as far as I know. But he sleeps a lot.

They got a third dog, a chocolate lab just like Scout. They named her Berry, after Berry Switzer, a football coach, some call legendary, that coached for Oklahoma University. Berry is also the name of a prominent man who once coached at Oklahoma State University. The two schools have always been rivals.

Some nice elements and good writing. I like the "spoon on a washboard" simile. You could tighten it up a bit. It kind of trails off at the end. I enjoyed reading it.

The story is better orated.

The problem, as I see, is the conversion attempt from the orated, party worthy version to a short story.

Once I got to the punch line I only knew how to deliver it one way. It's not as funny if you can't flail your arms. Maybe.