The High Potentate

One of my good friends has a child who was a hustler from birth! Lukey disappears for months at a time, and then he’ll resurface with his latest scheme. Last week one of my friend’s neighbors came back from vacationing in Washington, telling how they’d run across Lukey right there in the big city.

His poor parents like to have keeled over and bought the farm when they heard what Lukey was up to in our nation’s capital. It appears Lukey is up there pretending to be royalty visiting from some tiny country on the other side of the world. He was traveling on someone else’s dollar, backpacking across the world, when he discovered a remote village. The villagers had been waiting for hundreds of years for the appearance of a prophet that was prophesied in their ancient literature, a man who would walk out of the jungle as a gift from the jungle gods. And, yes, you guessed it, Lukey fit the description. He converted to the tribe’s religion and they made him King. And that brings us back to Washington. Lukey’s up there trying to secure funds for the village.

Lukey’s parents were horrified at the idea of Lukey swindling the government. This was the last straw. The two of them packed their bags and caught the next trip to Washington! They hailed a cab and arrived at the hotel Lukey had set up shop in, took the elevator to his floor, and knocked on his door, still holding their luggage. The door opened almost immediately and a small man with a strange tasseled hat on greeted them.

“Yes,” he said, “Do you wish to have words with Lukey the High Potentate?”

“Yes sir,” his daddy said. “Tell the Potentate his Mama’s here from Alabama and she tore herself a switch off one of those pretty cherry trees on the way in.”

~Shellie