God and the Saber-Toothed Tiger and Other Short Stories including Excerpts from the Hyde Out Inn Mystery Series

God and The Saber-Toothed Tiger

&

Other Short Stories

(Including excerpts from The Hyde Out Inn Mystery Series Novels)

Cover Art by Gustavo Rodriguez and Ricardo Fey

Copyright © 2016 EDWARD G. WEISS

Published by EDWARD G. WEISS at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

About Ed Weiss

In another life, Ed was a Full Professor of Economics and Business Ethics at National-Louis University, Chicago, IL. He was responsible for the development of his University’s MBA Program and one of the world’s first on-line Business Administration Programs. He has taught for Bethel College, North Newton, KS, a Mennonite school, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI, a Catholic one and the University of Maryland, University College in Europe. Before his academic career, he had been a NASD Principal, as well as a Home Office Life Insurance Underwriter, and then a Brokerage Field Underwriter. He was also the host of Ed-Itorial Weiss-Cracks on WELM-TV in East Lansing, MI. Presently, he is just a retired old-fart and an author in sunny Ajijic, Mexico. Further information including his vita, can be obtained at http://eddieg.theblogpress.com. He can be contacted at eddiegTHOI@gmail.com.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Short Stories

God and the Saber-Toothed Tiger: Pay Attention

The Toilet: Up is wrong! Down is correct!

Politics and Self-Interest in Smalltown

The Low-Down Librarian

Lake Michigan’s Other Shore

Pinochle

Our Last Christmas

Their Existence Was A Result of Bigotry

I Was a Murder Suspect

Excerpts from Novels

Hammering Nails Can Be Murder: It Was A Helluva Funeral

Felony Murder: The Grandson Apple Didn’t Fall Far from the Grandfather Tree

Sometimes the Innocent Pay

The Droopy-Eyed Bank Robber

The Gringo Mayor of Ajijic

Stosh the Cop’s First Case

About the Author

Short Stories

God and the Saber-Toothed Tiger: Pay Attention

Not one of the three people in front of me was paying enough attention to their present task to be ready to pay the grocery store cashier after their purchase had been rung up. Each of them in turn appeared as a startled dear in headlights when the cashier announced the price of their purchases. It was only then that each of them reached into their pocket or purse to extract either money or a checkbook so that they could pay their bill. This was in spite of the fact that we were all in the Express Check-Out line.

At least the two who paid cash didn’t delay the rest of us any longer. The one who paid with a check, of course, had to fill it out while the rest of us waited.

It doesn’t do any good to point out to these people the errors of their ways.

If one has the bad sense to try to do so, what one would get in return is a Mind your own business! or a What? You in a special hurry or something?

That’s if you’re lucky. It is quite possible that you would receive a vulgarism or even an offer to enter into a physical confrontation.

A This is my business! retort to the first and a Why do you think I am in the Express Check-Out lane? to the second does absolutely no good.

There’s little one can do if the latter two possibilities occur.

It is just best to grin and bear it in the first place.

It isn’t much different in the aisles.

There are many shoppers who seem to have taken a course in how to abandon their shopping cart exactly in the middle of the aisle slanted in such a manner while they meander looking for, I am sure, they know not what. Such a clever maneuvering of their abandoned shopping cart makes it impossible to push your cart forward on either side of the one that has been so abandoned.

Any mention of this by you to them is more than likely to receive a response similar to the ones already mentioned.

Again, it is just best to grin and bear it in the first place.

Now that we have cell phones to make already horrible drivers even worse, to enable them to drive as poorly as if they were intoxicated, defensive driving has become more of a chore than it already was.

Walking behind an obtuse threesome stretching across the entire sidewalk has always been a problem. Walking towards that threesome who seem to be enjoying themselves and each other so much that even when they look up and see someone approaching them, they still continue on their path as if it had been preordained that they should be allowed to do so and the approaching party should be obliged to merge with the wall of the adjacent building.

Now, one has to practice defensive walking like never before. Not only young people, a goodly proportion of them walking like they’re drunk, looking down instead of ahead. They’re not only texting or receiving one, they are deaf as well due to their headphones which enable them to either talk to a third party while texting or be listening to music loud enough to prevent them from hearing an Excuse me! Worse yet, they probably couldn’t hear a car horn warning them that they were about to be disenabled.

The first time I saw someone talking to themselves like that I suspected that it might well be a person with an addled brain. Now, I am sure of it!

Still waiting in that Express Check-Out line, there was an announcement over the store’s speaker system. The voice was reminiscent of George Burns, the actor.

Attention! Attention, please! I suggest that you all pay close attention. This is God speaking. I have been watching all of you, and I have come to the conclusion that the ability to pay attention seems to have been bred out of almost all of the members of the human race. That is not the way I created you. I intend to correct this evolutionary flaw. At exactly noon Greenwich Mean Time tomorrow, I will be releasing several millions of saber-toothed tigers around the world. They will be wandering this planet of ours for the next seven days. For the next seven days, I suggest that you all pay close attention.

I repeat!

At exactly noon Greenwich Mean Time tomorrow, I will be releasing several millions of saber-toothed tigers around the world. They will be wandering this planet of ours for the next seven days. For the next seven days, I suggest that you all pay close attention.

I was sure that a goodly number of people weren’t paying attention and didn’t hear the warning. Maybe next week, I would not have to pay so much attention to those who didn’t pay attention.

The Toilet: Up is wrong! Down is correct!

She heard her husband urinating on the top of the toilet seat. It was the middle of the night, but he was still drunk from the evening before.

Tomorrow morning would be their seventh wedding anniversary, 2556 days counting the one leap year, twice or more that many fights, both in public and in private, almost always about that damned toilet seat.

He insisted that It should be left up, damn it!

In the beginning, she had thought it just one of his idiosyncrasies, and while she insisted on holding her own, she didn’t think much of it, this in spite of her all too often sitting down on the cold porcelain and slipping down and getting her bum wet.

Her response was, If there was just the one part on which one sat, I could see an argument either way even if I still believe common courtesy weighs in a woman’s favor in that she faces discomfort if the seat is up in her attempt to use the toilet while a man only faces a bit of a mess if the seat is down and he urinates on it. However, a toilet seat consists of two parts, the lid in addition to the seat. The only possible use the lid could have is to not be left up. Otherwise, there is no need for it. So, its natural position must be down, and if it is down, the other part must be down as well. Therefore, it should be obvious that the alternatives are not equal. Up is wrong! Down is correct!

Her husband’s position was not, however, idiosyncratic! It was downright nasty! He bitched at her at home whenever he went to urinate which was quite often since, if he wasn’t an alcoholic, he was a near one. Then, he bitched about her to everyone he spoke to everywhere he went.

She asked herself, Why do I stay? Of the two of us, I am the smartest! Why do I stay? Of the two of us, I have the best education! Why do I stay? Of the two of us, I have the best job! Why do I stay? Of the two of us, I make the most money! Why do I stay?

The next morning on their seventh wedding anniversary, she would be able to handle that question. She would announce, I am leaving! and never again have to face her inquisition.

When she awoke, her husband was in the shower. He saw her as the same time she saw him.

He immediately bitched, You left the seat down. I pissed all over the top of the toilet seat!

Before she could respond, he stepped forward in the shower, slipped and fell. He grabbed for the now upright toilet seat as he fell which did him no good at all as it accompanied him down on his abject decent. He hit his head on the base of the toilet.

She ran to him and felt for his pulse.

There wasn’t one.

Her husband was dead!

She used the bedroom phone extension to call 911 for the now non-emergency. She gave the person on the other end the necessary information, hung up the phone and glanced back at her dead husband.

She began to laugh, hysterically.

She was still laughing when the paramedics arrived.

For the first time in the bastard’s life, he had finally put the toilet seat down when he was finished.

And now, the bastard was truly finished.

Politics and Self-Interest in Smalltown

Smalltown could have been a small town anywhere in the country. This time, it was between where the young man had been and where he was going.

The car he was driving was a non-descript, black, late model four-door sedan. He was exiting the expressway after several hours of driving, always obeying the 70 MPH speed limit within a mile or two. He was tired and thirsty, a mite hungry as well.

The young man knew he had better slow down because the speed limit would be dropping to 50 MPH as soon as the exit ramp