The
Cow Tipping Affair
A
Monologue by Peter-John Campbell
Cow
tipping. That brings back many memories.
Cow
tipping was one of my favorite pastimes when I was a kid. Just down
the road from where I grew up, Old McDonald had a farm. And on this
farm he had some cows. (It was a dairy farm.) At night if you
listened, you could hear a "moo moo" here and a "moo
moo" there. Here a "moo," there a "moo,"
everywhere a "moo moo." But I digress.
It
just so happened that one day my best friend Drew and I were hiking
down by McDonald's farm and we decided to hop the fence. (Little did
we know how much of a bad idea this was at the time.) It was a field
of hay grass that came up to about our waists. The cows had yet to
make it out that far to graze.
Now
snakes like to hang out in tall hay because they can find rats and
other things that like to hide there. We begin looking for snakes, I
guess because we didn't want to get bit, but also to catch one to
scare my sister with. To our great disappointment we didn't find any
that day. So we made our way down toward the farm.
On
our way we came across a herd of cows in some low field grass,
grazing. Besides one who took an interest in us, they didn't seem to
mind that we were there. The cow who did looked up from her gnawing,
gave us the once over, and went back to chewing her cud. (It was
pretty exciting.)
For
those of you who are cow tipping aficionados, you are probably more
than aware of these few facts, but many people are oblivious of
several very important things about cows.
First
of all, they're HUGE! I mean, you see them from the road and you
think, "Oh, look at that little cow over there." No. They
aren’t little, and for not being a predator, they're very
intimidating creatures.
Second,
their smell is beyond anything you can ever imagine, which places
them in a close second to a chicken coop. (You don't even want to
know.)
Third,
you never think about their "moo." A Cow’s "moo"
can be heard up to five miles away or so. When you stand next to a
cow and that baby lets one go, the sound about knocks you off your
feet and blows your eardrums. It's terrifying.
Fourth,
their tongues are purple.
And
lastly, and the most important thing to know: you don't want to
startle them.
Drew
and I sat in the grass observing these robust creatures for some time
before the thought of tipping one over ever came to mind. (I am not
sure what it is that possesses young boys to come up with such ideas,
but we do.)
So
there I was, both hands pressed against the side of this cow, and her
only response was a confused and annoyed, "Moo." She eyed
me briefly and then went back to eating the grass.
"Are
you sure this is going to work?" I asked Drew. He assured me
that indeed it would, and we both proceeded to push the beast as hard
as we could. The cow didn't budge.
"Push
harder!" Drew said.
"I'm
trying, she won't budge!"
We
took a quick break. After some thought we gave it another go. This
time, the cow only stepped over to the side.
"You're
not doing it right!" Drew blamed.
I
quickly defended myself, "Well, I don't know what I’m supposed to
do!"
We
tried one more time, and Drew found the snake that we were looking
for earlier. He screamed. And I screamed. We both screamed and the
cow "Mooed." And then they all "Mooed." And
before we knew it we were running, not so much out of fear of the
snake, (though it started as that.) it was more out of desperation as
we frantically tried to stay ahead of the hundred stampeding cows
running in our direction. Apparently cows don't like snakes either,
or maybe screaming children…or both. But we were running - and they
were running, it was quite the sight to behold.
It
was quite the sight to behold by Farmer McDonald, who was standing on
his porch taking this all in. He hopped on his horse like something you
see out of an old John Wayne movie and came galloping towards us. I
felt relieved when I saw him coming. Except that he wasn’t coming
to save us, he was joining in the chase! Farmer McDonald didn’t
seem too happy. So as he rode in front of the cows to calm them down,
Drew and I thought it best to keep on running toward the fence.
I
found my face in the dirt when I heard the first shot go off. Drew
quickly reached down and grabbed me and we keep running.
“He’s
trying to kill us!” I yelled.
“No,
he ain’t, he’s just trying to scare us.” Drew barely got those
words out of his mouth when the top of an old fencepost, sticking up
from the hay exploded not three yards from us. “I think he means
business this time Drew!” We ran as fast as our little
eight-year-old legs could carry us. I never did think we would ever
get to that fence.
We
made it to the fence and we could hear Old McDonald off in the
distance swearing his revenge. I never did get that snake we were
looking for, but farmer McDonald did get his revenge. Then again,
that’s another story.
