Magpie 42

“What does it say?”
“What does what say?”
“On the cup. The words on the cup.”
“Oh. ‘Winner, First City-Wide Dance Contest, Huaraches, Texas.’”
“So it definitely says ‘winner’? Then we’ve got a problem.”

“I really don’t think you should be blaming me for this, Ken. I had nothing to do with it. This was Bill’s project.”
“Well, where is Bill? He should be here, for God’s sake.”
“He’s sick. Had to take the day off.”
“Very convenient. He was placed in charge of this project, given very detailed instructions as to how to handle it, and now it seems he’s screwed it all up and has gone off to hide.”
“I can get him on the phone, set up a conference call.”
“First let’s go over this carefully again. The whole point of this dance contest was that it would be great publicity for Mabel Carswell, who may be our next mayor. Her daughter Stella was to win and the two of them, Mom and daughter, would be writ up in our weekly Tribune and be seen holding the winner’s cup.”
“Right, and everyone understood that.”
“Evidently not everyone. Then, once the election was held, I was assured that I would be appointed City Manager. But now someone – Bill or you or whoever – has messed up and allowed somebody else to win! You simply can’t depend on people any more; that’s what’s wrong with this country!”
“Well, it wasn’t that they were allowed to win. That girl Sissie Hasenpfeffer and her partner were simply the best dancers.”
“What has that got to do with it? My job – and yours, as far as that goes – depends on Mabel’s daughter Stella winning that cup. Now, start thinking; how can we fix this?”
“Phil has an idea.”
“I never thought I’d be saying this, but okay, I’d like to hear Phil’s idea.”
“Well, that girl Sissie’s partner is named Martinez. Maybe, with a bit of luck, he could turn out to be an illegal alien.”
“No dice. Joe Martinez’ family has lived here since before the gringos arrived.”
“Okay then, how about this? Those cups only cost thirty-five bucks. We could buy another cup, inscribe on it ‘Special Award’ or some such thing and give that to Sissie and her partner. The winner’s cup would then go to Stella and Mabel would be happy.”
“But Stella didn’t win. An unimportant point to us, but it’s of great interest to the residents of our fair city.”
“Well, who let this happen? Who were the judges? Don’t they know anything about politics? We spent thousands of dollars putting this dance contest together for one reason, as support for Mabel Carswell’s campaign, and we didn’t blow all that dough to give an award to someone named Sissie!”
“Let alone someone named Hasenpfeffer.”
“Thanks, Phil. You’ve made your contribution. Now go sit over there.”
“Suppose we let it leak out that someone has stolen the cup, since it is so valuable. So the dance festival authorities, who are you and me by the way, have decided that the only fair thing to do is to acquire another cup and award it to both Sissie and Stella. They’ll be co-winners. Sissie will ultimately get the cup to keep and Stella in the meantime gets her photo op, holding the dam’ thing with her Mom for the local media.”
“You don’t know much about Mabel Carswell, do you? I have a feeling that the only thing that would mean anything to her would for her daughter to win – which is what I pretty well guaranteed her would happen. Way things are going, someone else is going to wind up as City Manager and I’ll be back to convincing folks that they may be able to save fifteen percent on their car insurance, like that little green rodent on TV.”
“Well, as far as I can see, that ‘co-winner’ solution is all we’ve got. How about it, Phil? Have you got anything else to suggest?”
“Well, in tight situations like this it was always encouraging for me when I remembered what my Dad used to say: when the tough get going – or when you go getting tough – something like that, whatever – but it was always encouraging.”