Announcer on the TV: Come to DealSteal.com and get the best deal for everything you want. Shipping is free. All you have to do is beat out the other bidders and it is yours!

Joe hollered, “Oooo-wee. We gotta do that. Cynthia Baby! Where ya at?”

Cynthia Baby was washing up the dishes from last night’s regular weekly party which would make this morning falling on a Saturday. To be even more accurate, it was early spring. Things was a-bloomin’ and birds was a-tweetin’ and squirrels was a-chasing tail. Yes, something was in the air and it was a-making mojo rise everywhere.

Unfortunately and much to Cynthia Baby’s consternation, Joe’s mojo usually had nothing to do with chasing her tail and everything to do with throwing away money. Not that Joe believed he was ever throwing it away. Hell no. Joe was what city folk called an entrepreneur. Only the title didn’t mean he was making money. Making money Joe wasn’t so good at.

So with that announcement fresh in his head, and knowing dot com meant using a computer, and given that Cynthia Baby had a computer upon which she checked in, and most of their other friends didn’t have a computer and couldn’t go online, why Joe naturally saw a business opportunity.

“Cynthia Baby. You hearing me?”

Cynthia Baby heard two things. First, in Joe’s voice was the excitement of a new way to make money. Second, on the wooden floor the clunk of his boots making haste toward her.

“Cynthia! We are gonna be rollin’ in the clover baby.”

“I’m allergic to clover, Joe.”

“Now don’t go being negative upon this until such time as you hear the details. I swear, Woman, you got ways to suck all the wind out of a man’s sails. Geez!”

From long experience Cynthia knew there was no stopping Joe once he got a burr under his saddle, so she kept quiet and kept scrubbing.

“Now, see, here’s how it’ll go. You will show me how to work that computer for that online thing called — Baby, yer gonna love this — deal steal dot com. I’m gonna go bid on stuff and get it at a steal. Get it? Deal steal? Get it?”

Cynthia nodded and rinsed a plate.

“Then once I get it — did I tell you there is free shipping? — I’m gonna sell it here in the county on the Swap Shop.”

For those not from the county in question, Swap Shop was a radio show wherein folks will call in and say they need this and they got that to trade for it. But Swap Shop went even deeper than that. Folks could also list things for sale. So instead of swapping for some other thing, one could swap for money. And this is what Joe intended upon doing.

“But, Joe Honey, what if the thing you bid on online gets here and nobody ever wants it? What are we gonna do then?” Another plate hit the draining rack.

“Now see, Baby, I done thought of that. It’s called going into inventory. You know we got the barn out there and there’s plenty of room. So we save stuff up for the Christmas season, see. And then we can have sales. Why we can invite folks out to the barn on a Saturday night and do our auction. We will rake it in.”

Joe leaned up against the counter next to Cynthia Baby and made his voice go all low and sexy. He leaned in and said, “This ain’t my first rodeo, ya know.”

A plate paused midair between the rinsing sink and the rack, Cynthia sighed and took a stand. “Joe Honey, forget it.”

By the time Cynthia Baby got through with Joe Honey and destroying his hair-brained scheme that, of course, she was going to end up funding and she wasn’t gonna do it again dammit, risen mojo fell and Joe was back watching the TV.

Now, if Cynthia Baby had not taken that stand, this story would be much longer. The details of the bad execution of his scheme — that is his overpriced bids and nobody wanting to buy the stuff later and the barn getting full and a couple of years having gone by — yes, those details would have filled half a book and it wouldn’t even be entertaining. So Cynthia did us all a great favor by putting her foot down when she did.