LUCK OR SKILL?

A mid-fifties trucker, Joe, entered the Bootleggers Lounge south of Old Highway-84 just northwest of Lubbock. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting before he spotted his swamper/driving partner sitting at the bar in the back.

As he approached, Thomas said, "Hey, right on time to buy the next round."

"Hah! I bought the last two rounds yesterday," said Joe.

Thomas leaned back on his stool, focusing on something behind his driving partner. "Ahh ... I think that young lady is having trouble." Tom's tilting head alerted Joe to look behind.

There, a blonde woman in her thirties sat at a dining table. She rocked in her chair, her head and neck undulating like a swan's mating dance.

Six steps later, Joe spoke to the woman. "Are you choking?"

The woman studied Joe's face. Her mouth formed a small, round, silent pucker as her puppy-dog eyes pleaded.

"Do I have your permission to help you?"

The woman's thumb jabbed a half-dozen times, pointing over her shoulder like a desperate hitchhiker.

Joe wasted no time, pulled her to her feet, and positioned her behind one of the padded chairs. Bending her over, he placed her hands on the chair's armrests as she made two more swan-mating gestures.

In a single fluid motion, Joe lowered himself to one knee. His right hand grabbed and flipped the hem of her dress over her back while his left hand caught the waistband of her panties, pulling them to her knees. Next, Joe applied a warm, slobbering lick from her lower right butt cheek, over her curvy ass, to the hard boney point of her upper left hip.

The woman's reaction was instant. As if struck by lightning, her arms and legs shot up and out, and for ten nanoseconds, she looked like a free-falling skydiver in mid-flight. Gravity reaffirmed her dominion over reality. It tugged the woman towards the chair… the padded backrest caught her body three inches above her belly button. The blockage in her throat shot out like a plastic stopper from a magnum of Cold Duck before landing on the floor.

Job finished, Joe stood, grabbed his hat, and rejoined his trucking partner at the bar, strutting with a Foghorn Leghorn arrogance, "See, a hero, you get the next round."

"Hero, hell. You were lucky!"

"What! It takes skill to get that right."

"Hah, I wasn't talking about the Hind-Lick Maneuver. Just saying, Willy ordered the same Goat-choking burger."

Joe's gaze followed Thomas's nod to the other end of the bar, where a cowboy with a wrinkled, leathery face, easily two summers past eighty, sat eating. The man's toothless mouth gnawed at the large beef-filled onion roll.

Joe's attention switched to the woman he had just saved. One hand held her purse while the other clawed at her underwear at her knees. Her shapely, tan-less bottom waddled hurriedly toward the restrooms like a penguin being chased by a polar bear.

Joe's two fingers pointing at the bartender like a double-barreled shotgun. "Two pitchers of your best and grab a fistful of those scratch-offs by the register, too. My friend and I are celebrating some great fortune."