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Speaker 1: Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,

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Speaker 1: your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten

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Speaker 1: minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or

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Speaker 1: rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

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Speaker 1: pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human

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Speaker 1: condition as ten minutes will permit. Mini novels on steroids.

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Speaker 1: Today's offering is entitled The window Washer and His Pup.

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Speaker 1: Like many of the stories in this series, the window

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Speaker 1: Washer and His Pup rolls right out of real life,

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Speaker 1: real events. Now, many of us take our great good

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Speaker 1: fortune for granted, a roof over our heads, three squares

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Speaker 1: a day, good health, and families that love us. But

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Speaker 1: for many, life's not quite this sweet. Take John Adams,

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Speaker 1: for instance, not a whole lot of joy or good

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Speaker 1: luck in his life. But hey, maybe his luck is

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Speaker 1: about to change. The window Washer and his Pup. John

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Speaker 1: Adams has led a tough life, a hard life, one

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Speaker 1: might think, with that name so revered in these United States,

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Speaker 1: a man with such a designation might live on easy

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Speaker 1: Street drift an inch or two above the earth, above

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Speaker 1: the fray. But no, not this John Adams. This John

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Speaker 1: Adams has suffered. His dad died when he was just

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Speaker 1: a kid heart attack at thirty six Jesus. His mom,

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Speaker 1: desperate for money and companionship, married a smiling bank officer

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Speaker 1: who turned out to be a sadistic jackquad who smacked

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Speaker 1: John around. If John so much as passed gas or

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Speaker 1: asked for another slice of pie, you think all that

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Speaker 1: goddamn pie is for you, kid? Bam whack. Then, when

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Speaker 1: John was a senior in high school, his mom died

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Speaker 1: of sadness and despair, and John fled before his stepfather

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Speaker 1: could rough him up and kick him out the door.

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Speaker 1: He lived for a while in the basement of a

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Speaker 1: coffee shop, where he swept floors and moved boxes and

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Speaker 1: ground peabody beans from Tanzania and did whatever else. The

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Speaker 1: sadistic Albanian owner, who pretended he was Greek, told him

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Speaker 1: to do well. Then one day a pack of surly

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Speaker 1: agents from Ice showed up and deported the Albanian, and

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Speaker 1: that was the end of the coffee shop. The landlord,

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Speaker 1: living the good life in Bemony bone fishing and boning

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Speaker 1: lonely ladies on holiday, showed up found John sleeping in

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Speaker 1: the basement on some broken down cardboard boxes and chased

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Speaker 1: him out like he was nothing more than a feral cat.

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Speaker 1: John slept that very night on a park bench until

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Speaker 1: around four in the morning, when a cop gave him

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Speaker 1: a poke with his night stick and told him to scat.

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Speaker 1: He wandered about for the next few years, vagabond style,

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Speaker 1: picking up sticks in people's yards for loose change, and

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Speaker 1: picking up most of his meals at fast food joints

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Speaker 1: burghers and fries and cokes and cherry pies not made

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Speaker 1: with cherries. All his life, John had lived inside an

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Speaker 1: endomorph's body, but a few years on a burger king

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Speaker 1: McDonald's Wendy's diet and endomorph turned into megamorph. John was

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Speaker 1: dag near as wide as he was tall. An emergency

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Speaker 1: room visit precipitated by an unresolved and untreated strap throat

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Speaker 1: paired up with a low grade fever and a barkie

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Speaker 1: cough put him on Emock'sicilan, which was good, but some

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Speaker 1: blood work discovered numbers that screamed pre diabetes, which was bad.

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Speaker 1: The emergency room doc, a wise ass Whitey in his

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Speaker 1: late twenties from the New Jersey suburbs who holds an

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Speaker 1: authentic medical degree from Saint George's University in Grenada, tells

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Speaker 1: John he smells bad, needs a haircut, is thirty pounds overweight,

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Speaker 1: and if he doesn't get his shit together asap, he'll

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Speaker 1: be dead within a year. That's what he told him. Nice,

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Speaker 1: What a swell guy with a big heart. Every flipping

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Speaker 1: privilege known to man laid at his long, skinny feet,

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Speaker 1: including this emergency room gig that is old man the

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Speaker 1: head of neurosurgery set up for him, And still the

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Speaker 1: heartless bastard feels the need to batter the battered John Adams.

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Speaker 1: He's got nothing zippo zilch, no car, no bike, no

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Speaker 1: health insurance, no bank account, no CDs, no mother, no father,

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Speaker 1: no college or high school diploma, no wife, no kids,

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Speaker 1: no girlfriend, no friends, no prospects. But he does this day,

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Speaker 1: walking out of the emergency room, have himself a tiny

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Speaker 1: little stroke of good luck. His mom taught him good manners,

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Speaker 1: and so he holds the door open for a guy

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Speaker 1: on crutches with a cast on his right leg that

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Speaker 1: runs practically from his crotch all the way down to

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Speaker 1: his toes. Thanks good, the guy grumbles as he bowls

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Speaker 1: his way out the door. He's a big guy, tall

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Speaker 1: and thick and right now clearly ticked off about the

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Speaker 1: whole rotten state of the universe. Broke the goddamn leg

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Speaker 1: in like three places, he confesses, even though John didn't ask,

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Speaker 1: shattered something called the the femur. Whatever the hell that

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Speaker 1: is eight weeks, eight flipping weeks without one red nickel

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Speaker 1: coming in height of the season, and I gotta cancel

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Speaker 1: two months work. I'm screwed, kid, I'm screwed, screwed up

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Speaker 1: the wazoo. But do you think my ex gives a

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Speaker 1: damn huh? Do you No? Not a chance? She still

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Speaker 1: wants her dough every damn dime. I called her earlier,

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Speaker 1: told her what happened, asked her, you know, if maybe

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Speaker 1: she could come to the ear and pick me up.

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Speaker 1: You know what she said. John shakes his head, but

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Speaker 1: takes a stab at it. Go to hell. Now, John

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Speaker 1: might be an indigent, down on his luck, pre diabetic,

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Speaker 1: fat guy, but he ain't dumb, and he's got a

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Speaker 1: pretty good sense of humor. The guy with the busted

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Speaker 1: leg almost busts a gut. He laughs so hard, and

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Speaker 1: that seals the deal. He's a window washer with his

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Speaker 1: own window washing biz, just him, no partners, no employees.

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Speaker 1: But this morning he fell off the ladder reaching to

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Speaker 1: get a pane of glass, just a tad out of reach.

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Speaker 1: Whoa Jesus Cohow is a bam? And then off to

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Speaker 1: the emergency room. John drives the window washer home in

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Speaker 1: the window washer's ford econoline van. Window washer complains the

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Speaker 1: whole way about his crappy lot in life and the

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Speaker 1: crappy state of just about every damn thing under the sun.

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Speaker 1: John just drives. He's long past his whining days. The

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Speaker 1: window washer's house is a small, tidy ranch and an

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Speaker 1: okay part of town, nice little front porch on a

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Speaker 1: quiet street. They sit on that front porch and hammer

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Speaker 1: out a contract. John will drive the van, run a

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Speaker 1: few errands, and wash windows for one hundred bucks a

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Speaker 1: day until the broken bones heel. After that, well they'll

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Speaker 1: see one hundred bucks a day. Kid, you want more?

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Speaker 1: John shakes his head. I'm not gonna let my ice

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Speaker 1: cream melt counting your sprinkles. Huh, what's that? Huh? One

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Speaker 1: hundred dollars is perfect good, says the window washer. We

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Speaker 1: start tomorrow, John, nods and says, I got nowhere to sleep.

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Speaker 1: You think it would be okay if I camped in

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Speaker 1: the backyard. Hell's fire, John Adams, you can sleep right

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Speaker 1: in the spare bedroom. My kid used to sleep there,

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Speaker 1: but she vamoosed with her rotten mother. John's second day

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Speaker 1: on the job up at a big house on the heights,

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Speaker 1: a whole litter of cute little beagle puppies run around

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Speaker 1: the backyard. The missus says, the pups are eight weeks

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Speaker 1: old and ready to be off to their new homes.

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Speaker 1: Are there any pups left? Asks John the window washer,

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Speaker 1: Just one, the runt of the litter. Well, you think

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Speaker 1: I could do? You think I could get him? I've

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Speaker 1: always wanted a pup. Sure, he's one hundred dollars. John

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Speaker 1: hands over the five twenty dollars bills the boss gave

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Speaker 1: him last night, and when John arrives back at the

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Speaker 1: ranch house a few hours later, all excited about his

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Speaker 1: new pup, he finds an ambulance in the driveway and

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Speaker 1: the boss being wheeled out through the front door on

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Speaker 1: a gurney, oxygen mask covering his face. This your father,

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Speaker 1: asks the EMT. John sort of half nods and half

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Speaker 1: shakes his head. He learned a long time ago that

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Speaker 1: the world was many shades of gray. What happened? He

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Speaker 1: asks Stroke. He's in tough shape, but we'll do our best.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure he's gonna make it into the back,

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Speaker 1: goes the boss down the quiet street. Lights flashing and

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Speaker 1: siren blaring raises the ambulance. John scoops up his pup

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Speaker 1: off the passenger seat of the van and heads inside.

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Speaker 1: He finds a bowl and gives the pup water. Sits

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Speaker 1: on the floor and smiles while the pup laps it up.

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Speaker 1: John cracks beats and cooks up a big platter of

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Speaker 1: scrambled eggs. He shares his bounty with his new buddy, Bounty.

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Speaker 1: He says, that's what I'm going to call you, Bounty. Bounty.

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Speaker 1: Peas on the linoleum floor, John wipes it up with

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Speaker 1: a bounty paper towel. This makes John laugh. He rubs

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Speaker 1: Bounty's head and scratches Bounty's belly. They go out back

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Speaker 1: where there's a nice, big fenced in yard and lots

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Speaker 1: of lush green grass. They roll around on the grass,

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Speaker 1: playing and Bounty bounding, and John laughing and laughing. They

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Speaker 1: both sleep on the queen size bed in the guest room,

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Speaker 1: Bounty curled up close against John's side, and in the

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Speaker 1: morning they share another platter of scrambled eggs, and then

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Speaker 1: off they go in the van to wash some windows.

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Speaker 1: The Happy window Washer and his pup Bounty. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to this original audio presentation of the window Washer

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Speaker 1: and his Pup, narrated by the author. If you enjoy

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Speaker 1: today's story, please take a few seconds to rate, review,

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Speaker 1: and subscribe to this podcast. The Ten Minute Storyteller is

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Speaker 1: produced by Andrew Pleglici and Josh Colodney and as part

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Speaker 1: of the Elvis Duran Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Productions.

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Speaker 1: Until next time, this is Bill Simpson, your ten Minute Storyteller,