part0038

I recently heard about a friend of a friend —what you call a FOAF —who is an interior decorator with a thriving business on Chicago’s wealthy North Shore. He had just finished painting an elegant home in Wilmette, and was going around with a can of touch-up paint, making sure everything was perfect .

He finished the last brush stroke, stepped back to admire his work, and kicked the paint can over onto the priceless Oriental rug. What to do?

At that moment the client’s yappy, snappy, obnoxious toy poodle, Fifi, trotted into the room. Thinking quickly, the decorator scooped her up and dropped her into the puddle of paint, at the same time exclaiming loudly, “Fifi! Bad Dog! What have you done? ”

Sounds like a legend to me .

That story is certainly suspicious, and I suspect it is a legend. It has the typical friend-of-a-friend source and depicts an innocent pet suffering for a human’s mistake, another common legend ingredient. There’s an unlikely twist in the plot in the decorator immediately converting his own error into someone else’s problem .

I received Susan Kraykowski’s letter in September 1986 and wrote the above as part of a column that ran the week of June 1, 1987. One month later I received the information used in the following epilogue .

The durability of folk stories and storytelling has been brought home to me in much of my mail from readers of this column. Here’s one excellent example .

Clint Lovell of San Diego responded to my account of the story of how “Fifi Spilled the Paint. ” He wrote:

“Regarding your spilled paint/dog story, I can tell you that for damn sure this is a legend .

“In 1929, at the age of 18 years, I joined the 186th Inf. National Guard Band in Portland, Oregon. We had a Sousaphone player, name of Bert Junken .

“You question my memory on this? I later became Company Clerk and could type the monthly attendance reports and payrolls from memory .”

“Bert was a painter by trade. He told some of us the same story. Except, it happened in Portland Heights, on a wooden railing, on a stairway .

“It does go to show you, however, that these small house mutts might sometime serve some useful purpose .”

Lovell’s letter reflects several fundamental truths about the folk-narrative tradition. It demonstrates the superior memory, sharp wit, and vigorous language that are signs of a talented storyteller. He phrases his letter in the same lively terms that he would use in telling the story orally .

We also learn here about the probable use of the spilled paint/dog story by professional painters, either as just a tale they like to tell or perhaps as an occasional prank resorted to if a paint can is in fact accidentally tipped over .

Most of all, these two versions of “Fifi Spills the Paint” demonstrate the ways that urban legends vary with repeated tellings. It is unlikely that the 1929 Portland story is the direct ancestor of the legend told in Chicago in 1986; probably many other versions have been told over the years as well. But, as happens so often with urban legends, these two texts show how the essential elements of a plot may remain constant, while details are changed to suit each teller’s own situation .