This is a true story. The name has been changed to protect the, um, embarrassed.

They were in the telephone company vehicle on a service call that would take them quite a ways up the beach.

Past Kitty Hawk, past Southern Shores, past Duck, still heading north up the beach through a sparsely populated area. What we’re talking here is remote.

Well, they saw some goats, apparently untended, owned by no one.

That’s when our protagonist, we’ll call him “Horace,” said that he’d love to have a goat. He told his fellow employees he’d like to stop on the return and see if he might lure one of the goats near enough to throw a rope around it.

That was the plan. If successful, the population of Manteo was going to grow by one goat.

And so, sure enough, on their return, there were the goats.

So … out of the vehicle came Horace, rope in hand, and Operation Rope-A-Goat was under way.

Horace got close enough to the animal, after a bit, to actually toss the rope around its neck.

Mission accomplished? Not quite. Not by a long shot. Brother goat wasn’t going to budge.

Our man Horace literally began wrestling with the goat, attempting to get him to the vehicle.

That’s when one of the men at the service truck told Horace that no way were they going to put a stinking goat and a stinking man in their vehicle.

Since man and goat were still close by the water, Horace was advised to strip off his clothes – pants, shirt, shoes and socks – and at least get wet enough to get most of the smell off of him.

They told Horace one of them would hold the rope while he went into the water. So, Horace did their bidding, and with not much more on than his birthday suit, he headed toward the sea.

That was when – that very moment – a vehicle came upon the scene. The car stopped, and a back window was lowered.

An elderly woman’s face appeared, staring intently at Horace and the goat.

After a few moments – seeming to assess that which was taking place before her very own eyes – in no small voice she said, “Young man, you should be ashamed of yourself. Ashamed!”

Then away went the car with the mortified woman. She had told him what was what. The very idea.

Oh. The goat was brought to Manteo. At the local diner, and surely other places as well, the tale of Horace and his goat was told many times.

The moral: things are not always what they seem.

Fortunately.