Moonlighting

I hear all the time about how people find it necessary to work two jobs to make ends meet. Mostly it's the lifestyle they choose to live. I think of it as Oliver Hardy trying to get Stan Laurel's pants on. He could lose weight or he has to get a bigger pair of pants.
Around here most people just work one job. A few don't work at all and live off others, but only a few. I reckon it's okay to double work if you're a mind to. Not in the case of Ethyl Lou Pump though. She is the town psychologist. She has been for over thirty years since she move here from Tennessee. I have never been sure about her qualifications and have been a little suspicious since Mavelle Moosetrack reported that the diploma hanging on Ethyl's office wall came from a school none of us have ever heard of: Heard Knox University.
But this is about her moonlighting. Her second job is with the Harper Bee, our local newspaper. She writes the weekly gossip column "The Gossip Girl". Seems to me this is a conflict of interest. I got concerned enough to call the paper and discuss the matter with the editor, Horace Greenleaf. He says not to worry because Ethyl uses only initials and never puts in a person's real name. Also, she changes things around, like the location of a happening and the time of year and/or the time of the day. Things like that. Tomorrow I'll give you one of her columns and you can decide for yourself.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle