What Not to Feed a Dog

“Billy! Get in here and see what your dog did on the floor!”

Knowing he'd be in big trouble if he slipped out the back door, Billy slunk into the kitchen, and his eyes followed his mother's pointing finger.

“It's only barf,” he said, relieved that it wasn't something else.

Then he saw that his mother was holding an open bag of jelly beans, multicolored, like the mess on the floor. “Now whom do you suppose gave him these?”

“Um, Melissa?” When in doubt, blame your sister. Billy's mantra had failed a few times before, and was about to again.

“It's like this,” said his mother. “When I saw this, I asked myself, 'now who is going to clean this up?' And the answer I came up with wasn't Melissa, and it wasn't Max, and it certainly wasn't mom.”

“Maybe it was ...”

“Maybe it was Billy. And maybe Billy should get busy and clean it up.”

And so it was. Life as usual. Another no-win situation for Billy. But he tried to see the bright side. At least he'd left half a bag of jelly beans for himself.