The Puppy Scam.

 

When my puppy never arrived,

the one I ordered online and

paid a thousand dollars for,

my morals went into a tailspin.

Since the world was nothing but a scam

I decided to jump on the bandwagon --

to turn cynical huckster

and mulct as much as I could

from the gullible masses.

My first scheme was to sell

birdseed online --

replacing the seed with worthless sand.

But it turns out those who wanted birdseed

usually kept cats as well,

so they used the sand for their

litter boxes

and I got nothing but rave reviews

on Yelp.

And I was paying a fortune for

shipping,

because sand is heavier than

birdseed.

Next I wrote a check to myself

for a hundred-thousand-dollars.

Then went to my bank to cash it.

And they did.

Cash it, that is; the teller was grinning

to beat the band when she told me

they had just received twenty million

smackeroos from the Federal Reserve Bank

to help them out -- no strings attached, not

even any interest.

So the bank was giving money away

the day I came in to scam them.

Sometimes you just can't catch a break.

Finally I decided to kidnap a child.

But as I read up on how not to do it

(O. Henry's the author for that)

I became so engrossed in the literary

merits of the short story form

that I began writing them by the dozen

and sending them to magazines --

which took each one I sent and paid

me handsomely.

So now I've started a pulp magazine

myself,

called 'Cute Puppy Stories.'

I pay ten cents a word.

Up to a thousand words.

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