"THE DILLARD'S SHOPPING BAG"

(This is just too funny! This could only be true; you
simply can't make this stuff up!)

Clutching their Dillard's shopping bags, Ellen and Kay
woefully gazed down at a dead cat in the mall parking lot.
Obviously a recent hit --- no flies, no smell. What
business could that poor kitty have had here?" murmured
Ellen.

"Come on, Ellen, let's just go..." But Ellen had already
grabbed her shopping bag and was explaining,
"I'll just put my things in your bag, and then I'll use
the tissue to pick it up."
She dumped her purchases into Kay's bag and then used
the tissue paper to cradle and lower the former feline
into her own Dillard's bag and cover it.

They continued the short trek to the car in silence,
stashing their goods in the trunk.
But it occurred to both of them that if they left Ellen's
burial bag in the trunk, warmed by the TEXAS sunshine
while they ate, Kay's Lumina would soon lose that
new-car smell. They decided to leave the bag on top
of the trunk, and they headed over to Luby's Cafeteria.

After they cleared the serving line and sat down at
a window table, they had a view of Kay's Chevy with the
Dillard's bag still on the trunk. BUT not for long! As
they ate, they noticed a black-haired woman in a red
gingham shirt stroll by their car, look quickly this
way and that, and then took the Dillard's bag without
breaking stride.
She quickly walked out of their line of vision.
Kay and Ellen shot each other a wide-eyed look of
amazement.

It all happened so fast that neither of them could
think how to respond. "Can you imagine?" finally
sputtered Ellen. "The nerve of that woman!"
Kay sympathized with Ellen, but inwardly a laugh was
building as she thought about the grand surprise
awaiting the red-gingham thief.
Just when she thought she'd have to giggle into her
napkin, she noticed Ellen's eyes freeze in the
direction of the serving line. Following her gaze,
Kay recognized with a shock the black-haired woman with
THE Dillard's bag, hanging from her arm, brazenly
pushing her tray toward the cashier. Helplessly they
watched the scene unfold: After clearing the register, the
woman settled at a table across from theirs, put the bag on
an empty chair and began to eat. After a few bites of baked
whitefish and green beans, she casually lifted the bag into
her lap to survey her treasure. Looking from side to side,
but not far enough to notice her rapt audience three tables
over, she pulled out the tissue paper and peered into the bag.
Her eyes widened,and she began to make a sort of gasping
noise. The noise grew. The bag slid from her lap as she
sank to the floor, wheezing and clutching her upper chest.
The beverage cart attendant quickly recognized a customer
in trouble and sent the busboy to call 911, while she
administered the Heimlich maneuver.
A crowd quickly gathered that did not include Ellen and Kay,
who remained riveted to their chairs for seven whole minutes
until the ambulance arrived.

In a matter of minutes the curly-haired woman emerged from
the crowd, still gasping, strapped securely on a gurney.
Two well-trained EMS volunteers steered her to the waiting
ambulance, while a third scooped up her belongings.
The last they saw of the distressed cat-burglar,
she disappeared behind the ambulance doors.....
the Dillard's bag perched on her stomach!!