So this story has so sad, some glad and a big surprise...

Back a long time ago I was dating my late wife, Judy... She lived a couple miles from me in Wes Ginny and she had a bad habit of falling asleep at her home with all the lights on which stayed on all night long...

So I got a call from her about 2:00 in the morning, "I've been beaten and I'm hurt..."

I was there in less time it takes to say that that was the sad part of the story...

Turns out that someone had broken in and woke her accidentally while trying to steal something that might have looked like a computer but was only a briefcase... I waking her this person hit her with the briefcase which broke her jaw... Sniff... End of sad story...

After a couple weeks and an operation to repair the jaw Judy was real paranoid... She insisted that I stay with her at night and she was scared of everyone... She insisted that when we went out that I take my 12 gauge shotgun with us...

Judy loved auctions and so one Saturday we went to an auction out near Martinsburg, Wes Ginny and she bid on won a folding red wood love seat... After the auction she went back to my Chevy Suburban with the deep tinted rear windows while I was sent to collect the things she had bought...

Well, I had collected everything but the redwood love seat and went back to get it while Judy sat in the middle (back) seat in the Suburban with the shotgun...

When I got back to where the love seat was I found it to be gone...

Hmmmmmmmm???

I walked back to the Suburban and next to where we were parked was a Chevy station wagon and in the back, along with a bunch of other stuff, was the love seat...

Hmmmmmmmm, Part B...

So I look to see if I could get in the car... Locked!!!

Danged!!!

So I'm looking thru the windows of the car and see some mail on the dashboard and there's some mail addressed to "James Stickley"???

Hmmmmmmmm, Part 3...

So I tell Judy that I'm going back to the auction office and see what's what with this James Stickley and find that he is a regular and tell the folks to page him which they did...

A couple minutes later he shows up and I confront him about taking a the love seat that we have bought and he made a nunch of excuses like "People buy stuff and leave it behind"...

"They do, sir?"... I ask...

So I tell him to follow me back to my Suburban - wtih his Chevy wagon next to it with out love seat - which he does...

Now ya'll have to remember that Judy is in the back seat with a Winchester 12 gauge shotgun...

Mr. Stckley, who by now I have in mind renamed "Sticky Fingers" Stickley, is making excuses all the way back to the parking lot and unlocks his car, removes the love seat, hands it to me as I open the side door of the Suburban and there is Judy with that shotgun on her lap pointing at the opening door...

I'm lookin' over at "Sticky Fingers" as he locks in on the sight of Judy with a 12 gauge shotgun pointed at him and seeing pure "Oh shit" all over his face followed by "Please don't shoot me" followed by "Geeze, maybe I should be a crook:... All these things flashed over "Sticky Fingers" face in matter of three or four seconds...

Well, folks, we loaded the love seat while Sticky Fingers" died a thousand deaths and left him with his thoughts...

I lost Judy a couple years later but whenever times were sad all we had to do was bring back that day and that one story would always jump start us away from the realities of cancer and toward laughter and getting away from that reality, if only for a few minutes...

Thank you, James "Sticky Fingers" Stickey for being a crook and for the memories...

B~