The Myth of Wile E

Little Green Men

To enter the stamp contest, Dougie borrowed the exact-copying techniques he'd learned from Daddy's art correspondence school materials, and drew three small portraits: one of Ben Franklin, one of Andrew Jackson, and one of Abraham Lincoln. He drew the portraits on 2.5-inch by 6-inch paper that he watercolored slightly green. He drew numbers and mottos around the portraits. They looked quite a bit like money. In fact, they looked exactly like money.

Now, any fool could see that those portraits of little green men were no less masterpiecey than the duck portrait. I mean, I sure could see it. And I think we can agree that Dougie more than paid his entry fee. Everyone knows that a unique, handmade piece of art, crafted with nontoxic ink on recycled paper, is much better than some mass-printed thing. And it's not like Dougie tried to impersonate the Secretary of the Treasury or anything like that. He knew enough not to forge someone else's signature. He always signed his own name to his artwork.

Well. You may be surprised to learn that the Department of the Interior is about as uptight as the tax people. Apparently it is a "federal offense" to mail do-it-yourself currency to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

I really think Dougie got a raw deal. His whole life everybody always told him to find a way to make money, and isn't that exactly what he did?

And for just that, poor Dougie was sent upriver for "two dimes and a nickel."