(The following little scene occurred to me yesterday, and it amused me in my simpleminded way.)

Waldo Pfennig had just finished checking his e-mail, and was ready to start work when a man and a boy walked into his office. The man was tall and lean, his face dark and weathered. He looked like a cowboy in a movie, even to the coarse blue shirt, jeans, and flat-brimmed black hat, which he carried in red, cracked hands. Waldo couldn’t help checking to see if the man was wearing western boots. Nope. High top work shoes.

The boy was the man’s image, but shorter and less sharp at the edges. His fair hair stood up at one side, as if he’d slept on it badly. His face was hard to see, since his gaze was fixed on the floor.

“My name is Adonijah Fell. This is my son Jonas,” the man said. “This is… Credit Assistance Corporation?”

“That’s right, Mr. Fell,” said Waldo, getting up to reach across his desk and shake the man’s hand. “I’m Waldo Pfennig. Please have a seat, both of you. What can I do for you?” Fell had a grip like slamming your hand in a car door. He sat cautiously, as if it were an unfamiliar exercise. The boy slumped in the chair beside him, head down, elbows on his knees.

“You help people with debt problems, right, Mr. Pfennig?” asked Adonijah Fell.

“Yes sir. No matter who let the dogs out, we’ll pen ’em up again.” Waldo grinned. He was proud of that little joke. It always helped to relieve the tension.

Adonijah Fell just stared at him, puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I didn’t come about dogs.”

“No, no. It’s just a little joke. You know the song? ‘Who let the dogs out?’”

“Can’t say as I recall it.”

“Well, never mind.” Waldo leaned back in his desk chair. “The point is, if you’ve got problems with creditors, we’ll help you straighten it out. Nobody needs to live with harassment from collectors. You need a friend, we’ll be your friend.”

The man nodded slowly. “Well, my boy here, Jonas, he’s got a debt problem.”

Waldo nodded in an understanding manner. “It’s more and more common nowadays for teenagers to get in over their heads with their credit cards.”

“Oh, it’s not a credit card problem. I don’t hold with credit cards. Don’t even have one myself.”

“Oh. Well, you’d better tell me exactly what the problem is, then.”

The man turned to his son. “You tell ’im, Jonas. Sit up like a man and tell it straight.”

The boy straightened and looked miserably in Waldo’s face. Waldo thought there might be the beginnings of a tear in his eye.

“I bought an iPod, sir,” he said. “I really wanted one, and the man at the store said all I had was to do was sign the paper, and they’d put it on time payments.”

Waldo nodded. “All right. What else?”

The boy’s eyes widened. “That’s all,” he said.

“That’s all? I don’t understand. What did this iPod cost?”

“Seventy dollars, sir.”

“And you can’t make the payments? You’re behind on them?”

“No, no. I’ve been making the payments. I’ve only got about forty dollars to go.”

“So what’s the problem?” Waldo asked. He glanced back and forth between father and son.

“First of all, he did all this without telling me about it,” said Adonijah Fell. “Secondly, he went into debt. We don’t hold with debt in our family. ‘The borrower is slave to the lender,’ the Good Book says. I want us out from under this thing. I can’t sleep at night, thinking about it. I heard your commercial, ‘If debt is keeping you up at night, call C.A.C.’ So that’s why we’re here.”

Waldo shook his head. “I’m not sure what I can do for you gentlemen. We don’t usually deal with such small sums. And our service generally involves working out payment schedules, but you’re doing that already. As a matter of fact, our customers usually pay us on credit too. What sort of help were you looking for?”

“I figured the boy could work the debt off. Sweep floors. Stock shelves. Mow grass. Something like that.”

Waldo leaned back and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s something you’ll have to work out with the store. That’s not the kind of service we provide here. We help people with large debts to work out some kind of arrangement; get all or part of it forgiven, set up a payment schedule, work with the dealer so they don’t ruin their credit scores. That sort of thing.”

Mr. Fell stood up, and the boy followed his lead. “You mean to say you help people get out of paying the obligations they owe?”

“That’s part of it, yeah.”

The man gave Waldo a long look; a look that made him feel suddenly as if he hadn’t had a bath in a while.

“I guess you’re right sir,” Adonijah Fell said after a moment. “I reckon we did come to the wrong place.”

The two of them walked out, closing the door behind them.

Waldo sat for a full two minutes, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Finally he did a web search to find a phone number, and dialed it.

“Family Services?” he said when he’d gotten through. “I need to report an unfit parent.”