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Advice and a Literary Allusion from an Unlikely Source
by
~Anthony Aycock~

At a meeting of McDonald's restaurant managers and owner/operators from the entire Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson co-op, I chanced upon the store owner I worked for in Spindale, North Carolina several years ago. We talked for a moment, and I realized that he had not been informed of the self- destruction of my marriage, which should be of interest to him because my wife was also a manager in that Spindale store when I met her. In fact, we continued to work together after we were married.

Affecting a light-hearted facade, which is a technique that divorce will help one to cultivate and which may become valuable in other areas of life that require one to coat emotional pain with a facial antacid, I told him that Shauna and I were no longer together. His response contained the customary pity but also struck out in a more poignant direction.

He asked me if I had ever read the book OLD YELLER. I replied in a way that I never reply to such a question--meaning that I admitted to having seen the movie--and he said that my marriage had been diseased like the dog in that book and that I could let it advance toward death one frame at a time or I could shoot it.

Nodding slowly as is my wont when I encounter a piece of scurrilous wisdom, I excused myself and returned to the conference room.

The pawn shop near my house has a wide selection, but I think that something small and lightweight will be sufficient for a mongrel wounded this heavily.

~© 1998 Anthony Aycock~

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