So it's Friday evening and I'm lounging on the porch, book in hand, watching the sun set across the lake. Gunsmith Bob shows up and saunters onto the porch.
Bob: "Hey, look! There're goats in the field across the road."
Me: (Not looking up from book,) "Yeah, my landlord's farm project has started. They were there last Friday, too."
B: "They were? Hm. Lets go look at them."
M: "What's to look at? They look like goats, Bob."
B: "Still, we could walk over and look at the goats."
M: "That would involve actually walking."
B: "It won't make your legs fall off, y'know."
M: *sigh* "Okay."
(Insert trudging noises.)
B: "Now these are young goats; only three or five months old or so. When they get bigger, they'll... Oh, isn't that cute."
M: "Wha...? Oh, look. Tippy is a boy goat. Y'know, I'm wondering what horrible wrong turn I took in my life, and when I took it, that resulted in me being almost forty years old, standing in my front yard on a Friday night, cigarette in one hand and beer in the other, watching a goat blow itself. Which circle of Dante's inferno is that? Is that the seventh or eighth circle, with the auto-fellating livestock? I want to go back to the world of ten minutes ago, when everything was happy and wholesome."
Hopefully y'all are tortured with the same mental picture now, because misery loves company.
I'll stick with reading.
ReplyDeleteFarmer TV show. Just add grass....
ReplyDeleteBe grateful.
ReplyDeleteI'm close to your age but took a very different path. I've got a beer in one hand and an armory, but that's about all we have in common.
I quit smoking 2 years ago and still regret it. Upstairs are six kids. I spent friday evening convincing my 6yr old to stop saying the f-word. The last 24 hours have seen 2 leaky diapers, rain which began when I took the kids to the park, and a scheming 3yr old who pretends to nap until I walk away then breaks out the permanant markers she stashed earlier.
A cigarette and autofellating goat would be a welcome vacation.
The grass is always greener.
Wow, that reminds me of a goat story of my dad's. He was out hunting somewhere in the hill country when a crazed wild billy goat charged him, making a shrieking sound as it went. Dad ran and made it over a nearby fence and turned to watch the floor show in which the goat drank its own urine from the source. Now that's recycling!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this tidbit. I thought I was in danger of feeling drowsy. I giggled myself awake. Yeah, your life is exciting. Actually, your life sounds nigh on perfect, to me.
My father told me once a story whereupon, on several occasions, some members of the brood would hold another (more often than not, Uncle Ronnie, which may explain...) with his, or her, head poking through the rails of the goat pen, whence they get the bejeezus knocked out of them by the billy.
ReplyDeleteI thought Billy's just peed on their beard so as to smell more manly or something.
ReplyDeleteI learn new things every day.
For example I just spent the evening with two young married couples describing /comparing in nauseating detail childbirth, sleep deprivation and the other vagaries of infants.
This is supposed to encourage me?
Certainly has put me off Goat Milk Fudge...
ReplyDeleteThe doubt has now been introduced, and I don't have time for the therapy to get rid of it.
TheSev
Wow. And I thought only spammers, telemarketers and members of MoveOn.org blew goats.
ReplyDeleteThe outdoors is great. I love it. I love watching it through two thick layers of toughened glass sandwiching a nice, sound-deadening vacuum. All that green... stuff... and the things with too many legs, too much slime, or simply no concept of polite comportment? I think they're great. While I'm looking at them in HD, or possibly when I meat part of one in a Bearnaise sauce next to the veg.
ReplyDeleteActually messing round with that stuff looks shockingly unhygeinic, though. People get paid to take care of that, right?
;)
Meat? Eat. Foodian Slip there, my apologies...
ReplyDeleteThanks soooo much for sharing that.
ReplyDeleteLook at it this way. Most people would have to go to the internet for something like that. You get to see it in living color.
ReplyDeleteI vote that you name that goat "MSM". It seems appropriate, somehow.
It's hard to like goats. The wiry fur, the weird little beard that not even Osama would wear. And let's not even get started on those freaky pupils!
This story also reminded me of an incident last year. We were visiting my sister-in-law in Canada. One of the local attractions was an authentic nineteenth-century village that was operated by some truly dedicated re-enactors. It was a really cool place.
ReplyDeleteIt even had a pig pen. Inside this pig pen was an enormous boar, lying on his side in a blissful torpor. Said boar had an amazing set of testicles, which he had thoughtfully presented towards the public side of the pen. These things were almost the size of a grapefruit (apiece!).
Well, my five-year-old daughter points to the appendages and asks, "Daddy, what are those?"
I'm so proud of myself. Without missing a beat I replied, "Pig parts."
Problem solved.
Then there was the time a Budweiser Clydesdale named "Mike" saluted my wife. Talk about making a guy feel inadequate...
Thanks Tam! That was a great story. Y'know, some folks go through their whole life without getting the opprotunities to truly appreciate all that nature has to offer. Keep your eyes open; you have at least another 40 more years to witness many more wonders in the animal world. But it's doubtful any of them will make me laugh as much!.
ReplyDeleteI've got a cousin who is a goat farmer. I will have to check with him about this...
ReplyDeleteStuff like this is the reason cellphone cameras were invented.
tbeck, don't feel bad; I get that a lot.
ReplyDeleteDo you realize that in some cultures (well, one culture) people actually EAT those things?
I've been checking, and on average, one Tam post out of three has a commenter demand to include pictures. This is not one of those posts.
Oh my god... just ... no.
ReplyDeleteDammit, Tamara!!!!!
Makes you wonder why goats have such a reputation for being so priapic. You'd think they'd be more, er, sated. (Satyr'd?)
ReplyDeleteI hope you did not make a loud noise.
ReplyDeleteBecause these might have been Tennessee fainting goats. Which don't really faint when startled, but have a little epileptic seizure.
An epileptic seizure can include involuntary clenching of the jaw muscles? So don't do that.
When we went to Petra, my littermate and I encontered a gentleman donkey who was , although standing, in contact with the ground at five points.
Without missing a beat, she turned to me and said, "It's twoo, it's twoo...".
At least the goat wasn't auto-felching.
ReplyDeleteDamn, Kristopher beat me to it-- you didn't have any flashbacks from the sight of the goats, did you?
ReplyDelete