Champ of a Liar

Ed Wilson is without a doubt the biggest liar in the county and he keeps us entertained with his outrageous stories. He never will admit that they are just tales, swears that every one is the honest-to-God truth.

A few of the boys were gathered around the corner of the bar while Ed held court the other evening. “Bet you fellows didn’t know that my dog can talk,” Ed offered, looking at each of us as if daring us to say it wasn’t so.
We all grinned, waiting to see who would take the bait.

“Okay,” I finally said, “now you know your dog doesn’t talk, Ed.”

“Struth! He does. Another fellow didn’t believe me when I told him that last week. He even bet me money, 20 bucks, that Champ couldn’t talk so I proved it to him.”

“And how did you do that?”

“Well, I brought Champ over and said, ‘now Champ, what’s that thing called on top of the building’ and he said, ‘roof’.”
I rolled my eyes.

“Then I said, ‘Champ, what’s sandpaper feel like?’ and he said, ‘rough’.”
I winced.

“Then I asked him, ‘Champ, who’s the greatest baseball player ever?’ and he said, ‘Ruth’.”
We all groaned.

“Well, that fellow called me a liar right to my face. Can you believe it? Said that Champ was just barking. That’s when Champ looked up at him and said, ‘Who did you expect me to say, Hank Aaron?’
You know, that fellow was so astonished he apologized and paid us without any more argument.
I gave Champ his half of the money and he took off running. He was gone for nearly an hour so I went looking for him and when I finally found him he humping away on a pretty little French poodle.
‘I said, Champ, I’ve never seen you do that before‘.”

“And what did Champ say then?”

“He said, ‘Hell, I never had ten bucks before’.”
We all laughed.

“Struth. Honest. You know, we could have used a smart dog like like Champ when I was in the CIA.”

“CIA? Now Ed, you know you were never in the CIA.”

“Why George, I wouldn’t lie to you. It was back about 20 years ago, but I’ll never forget the day I passed my final test and got my badge. It was tough, that final exam.”

“What sort of test was it?”

“I’m not really supposed to talk about it, you understand, but it’s been a while so they probably won’t care. Just don’t go telling everybody, okay?
There were three of us and the instructor gave each of us an automatic pistol. He said that the final test was to prove that we would obey all orders, no matter how difficult they were. He said that our wives were in a room across the hall and we were supposed to take that gun and go shoot our wife. Of course, I told them right away that I would never do something like that. I love my wife, but the second guy took the gun and started out the door. Then he stopped and admitted that he couldn’t do it either.

The third guy didn’t hesitate at all though. He went into the room across the hall and shut the door. I wasn’t the only one to jump when six loud shots rang out. A few minutes later we heard a bunch of loud banging and thumping and scuffling noises. Finally he came back with his face all scratched up and his clothes sort of rumpled.

The instructor looked surprised and asked him what happened. He said, ‘that gun you gave me was full of blanks. I had to strangle her.’

It turned out that he was the only one who didn’t pass the test.”