Me vs More F*&$InG Cows: Moo-ving Targets and Questionable Heroics

I'm beginning to realize that for very unplanned reasons, cows have figured prominently in my writing for years now, and this post is no exception. You're welcome.

Living in the country comes with its perks: quiet nights, open spaces, and the occasional deer wandering through the yard like they’re auditioning for a Hallmark Christmas special. But no one warns you about cows.  These lumbering escape artists turned my peaceful yard into their personal hangout, and I found myself in the middle of a battle of wits with creatures whose main hobby is chewing grass and judging you silently. Spoiler: they are better at both.

I don't particularly like cows. They're fine, but generally I prefer them nicely done on a bbq than staring me down across the driveway.  I'm confident that cute, personable cows are out there, but the ones I've had the pleasure of interacting with have all been big and dumb, and subsequently intimidating in their stupidity.  

Like I do sometimes, I was enjoying my morning in the backyard, doing some painting and admiring the crisp rural air, when the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Something was behind me, watching me, questioning my use of the colour blue.  I turned around expecting a bear or a cougar, because that felt likely in the forest, but no, it was six cows— six brown and white cows, standing in my yard like they pay my taxes, casually munching on my grass and shitting everywhere. One of them locked eyes with me, her expression saying, Try me, subordinate.

Well, game on, Betsy May.

I called the owner to let them know that I probably had their cows. They were not in town and suggested I just "go over and tell them to go home".

Now, I'm not an experienced cow handler, but I don't think they work like that. They are cows, not homing pigeons.

I honestly didn't know what to do. I'd known someone who was trampled by a cow, and he was a cowboy with years of cow practice, and I was...not. The offending cow had left his leg mangled, and my belief in the charm of cows fully destroyed. Under no circumstance was I getting anywhere near those obtuse meat tanks. 

So I considered my options: Chasing cows on foot? No. I valued my ability to walk without a limp. Calling their owner? Tried that and I was on my own unless I trusted the herd's sense of direction, which I did not.  The obvious answer here was taking the cows for a walk like a country girl: by truck. Trucks are made for rugged terrains, hauling trailers, and, as it turns out, cow herding....primarily because I felt I was closer to an even weight class when safely tucked inside. 

With the confidence of someone who had watched Yellowstone once, decided all the characters were reprehensible, and then fallen asleep halfway through, I hopped into my standard issue black truck and set off on a mission.

I started slowly creeping up on them like a tiger in the wild—if tigers had poor visibility, some rust, and a playlist blasting '90s rock. The cows, unbothered, gave me a side-eye and continue munching. I gently revved the engine, hoping to scare them off and get them moving down the road towards their farm. Nothing. These cows had nerves of steel or were just too stupid to grasp what was happening. Jury’s still out.

I gave it a little gas. The truck inched closer. This gets their attention. The cows start to meander off, clearly offended by my intrusion.  But the leader—the cow equivalent of the cool girl in high school—stands her ground.

I edge closer, thinking, I’m bigger, I’m faster, I have a vehicle. She thinks, NO. I eat, you leave! 

What followed was a ridiculous game of very slow chicken, which was interesting given that this was a cow, but  finally, with a disgruntled moo that I’m pretty sure was cow-speak for Eat Glass she sauntered off down the road after her coven.

Victory? No. There's no winning here. 

Cows are stubborn creatures, and as soon as I turned my back to go inside, they started creeping back into the yard. It became a whole morning ordeal—me chasing them out, them returning, and me questioning my life choices. Eventually, I herded them by truck all the way down my long driveway, down the road, and hopefully off towards their pasture...or at least in that general direction. I'm sure they got home eventually. Probably. I assume I would have heard about it otherwise. 

In surviving this up close and personal cow encounter, I will say that I learned a few things: Cows have no respect for personal property and would prefer if you left please, trucks make excellent cow-chasing tools, but you will feel very ridiculous taking cows for a walk with your truck, and people with actual ranching experience will find this whole situation far less traumatic than you do. Moo. 

Me vs The End of Hoilday Falsehoods

As a parent, you want to make the most of the holidays for your children. Traditionally, this means lying to them about the existence of things like a large voyeuristic man in a red suit who sneaks into your house at night to leave you stuff, or a large anthropomorphic rabbit who sneaks into your house at night to leave you stuff, or a small fae creature who sneaks into you house at night to take your stuff, but then also leaves you stuff. To summarize, there's a surprising amount of night time break and enters that we collectively seem to turn a blind eye to. 

But like all good things these childhood deceptions must end, sometimes with traumatic fanfare, sometimes as quietly as a pin dropped on the forest floor, and occasionally with something approaching mania. 

My sister takes the prize for "Most traumatic death of a childhood fantasy" that I am aware of. Reality came crashing down when our house was broken into. Instead of coming in and leaving gifts, which up until this point was all that strangers coming into your house were supposed to do, they just stole all our stuff. During the assault on our house, while riffling though my parents room, they dumped a jewelry box onto the bed; along with all my mother's jewelry, came years of baby teeth, crashing onto the duvet in all their off white, nightmare fueled glory.

Suffice to say the robbers neglected to claim the teeth as their own, breaking the time-honoured fae contract to break in, take teeth, and leave gifts.  They also failed to clean up after themselves. This was both unforgivably rude, and left years of dental-specific evidence of my parent's falsehood scattered around the room for us to discover. In the end it turns out there are only two real reasons that your parents have large numbers of children's teeth in their possession: they are serial killers keeping trophies or the Tooth Fairy isn't real. The latter seemed more likely, and so the Tooth Fairy and all her ilk died for my sister that day.  

With my daughter it was less overtly traumatizing; the realization came to her one day, shortly before Easter, that a bunny delivering chocolate eggs went just a bit beyond the scope of believability. I gently explained that yes, we were absolutely making that nonsense up, but she'd still get chocolate. The panicked look subsided and then there was a sharp intake of breath. She looked at me, tears glistening, and just said the Tooth Fairy? Yes. And then another small intake of breath, the truth sinking in....SANTA? Also yes. 

I curbed the agony with the speech about how she was now in on the secret and had to help us "be Santa" for her brother, who was still very committed to the myth. We got through it and carried on but now there was a shadow lurking over my shoulder.....when my youngest figured it out, how would I play it off? For him it would just be over. No helping younger siblings, no being in on it, just the finality of death, the end of a belief. It would just over. He's a very sensitive kid, I was worried. 

It turns out that I didn't need to be. My sensitive, empathetic little guy is also corporate spy-level devious, and fully committed to fucking with us as well. 

The illusion crumbled a few nights ago. He'd lost a tooth, which is never something I look forward to because I hate teeth. Everything about them is horrible the moment they stop being functional teeth, and seeing a detached molar sitting on a bedside table makes me want to scream. 

But I digress. 

As he's telling me the harrowing tale of the lost tooth, he looks at me and in a perfectly matter of fact tone says: Hey mom, what do you do with all the teeth after you take them?

WHAT? Wait....what do you mean? Do you mean what the tooth fairy does with them?

No. You. I know you take them. 

Oh.....well if we're doing this, then I guess I throw them out. I don't have a reason to keep your teeth. That would be weird.  (MOM! See...keeping teeth is weird)

Hmm, yeah that makes sense. 

So, um, how long have you known???

Oh, probably the last 4 teeth. 

And then something inside me snapped and I just started cackling like a mad woman. I explained to him that I had just been setting an alarm on my phone to remember the stupid tooth, and it was nice that didn't have to happen. But of course he still wanted his tooth money, so like a normal, not crazy, definitely not insane parent, I made him get up and flap his way to the garbage can to get rid of it in the magical tooth fairy depository, and then flap his way to my wallet, following which he had to properly place his winnings under his pillow. By the end I'm surprised we could still move, we were laughing so hard. 

But now that the fairy was out of the proverbial bag, I needed to know what the parameters were. 

The Bunny?

Oh yeah, I've known about that one for a while too. But I like chocolate. Did you really think I believed a bunny was doing that?

Well, I certainly wasn't sneaking around like an idiot hiding eggs for my own sake, so yeah.

He found this terribly funny.

And I guess that means you're in on the whole Santa bit as well? 

This was not going at all like I had thought or feared it would, but I was also starting to wonder if my son was smarter than me. Probably. 

Well, yeah. I picked up on clues. Again, it feels a bit unbelievable at this point. 

True enough, you tiny sociopath, but then why make me suffer through all the ridiculous sneaking around? That shit isn't easy. 

Again he laughs, and now I'm starting to wonder if he finds human suffering entertaining. 

No mom, I didn't want to ruin it for you guys. 

Nope, he's definitely just smarter than me. 

Well, at least I won't have to hide that stupid elf on the shelf anymore. 

He looks at me dead in the eye. Oh no, I still want you to do THAT. It's fun. 

He knows I hate the elf. This is not fun, this is war.

  

Me vs A Duck update

This many years into the strange war that I started with my mother, that has now extended to include children, siblings, and spouses, it shouldn't surprise me at all when the ante keeps getting upped. 

My mom is still finding ducks (she's currently recovered 38), but it turns out that both her and my dad have been using more than a little free time formulating plans and flexing their arts and crafts muscles in the interest of warfare. And I have to admit they've outdone themselves. 

When they showed up this weekend for a visit they had "gifts" for us. May I present for your consideration, then next generation of the Duckening....

First, meet the Turducken. It's stuffed full of tiny ducks, and I wish it had stayed that way. When my youngest removed the tape gag and unstuffed this rubbery horror, he discovered that when squeezed it made a sound so uniquely awful, that a dream dies every time the noise reaches your ears.  What is especially amazing is that this is obviously a dog toy made by Satan, and my parents don't own a dog; they went out looking specifically for stuffable bird and bought it for this one special purpose. I can't even be mad. Well done. 

The next up was my gift. Cheese and Quackers. I can hear you all groan; I did the same thing. This is a terrible pun and deserves our displeasure. Fully and beautifully wrapped, I received cream cheese and a surprisingly well resealed package of "quackers". At least I got a block of cream cheese out of it. 

And finally, the piece de resistance, and possibly an homage to the Olympics being held in France, may I present to you Duck a l'Orange.  I mean, really, no notes. This is just brilliant. Although the mouth-feel does leave a bit to be desired, and it has more crunch than I would expect of a French delicacy. 10/10

Guess it's my turn next. I have some ideas...

Me vs The Duckening: A Gnomian Wars Update

As some of you may remember, a number of years ago I launched what eventually came to be known as the Gnomian Wars, which started innocently and ended up with my mother unwittingly signaling to our neighbourhood that we were swingers. We are not, but the gnomes indicated otherwise.

The short version is that when I learned that my mother loathed garden gnomes with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, it became my purpose and joy in life to make sure she was provided with as many gnomes as possible, usually without her knowing about it until it was too late and she found them tucked into corners and under pillows. This escalated quickly, as anyone who knows me would expect, with gnomes travelling back and forth between my house and my parents house in a long-distance game of hot potato.

The Gnome on the Thone
A thoughtful gift from my father

This went on for years, and continues to this day. For example, I have to tip my hat to my parents most recent offensive, where they painstakingly broke into a parcel we had shipped to their house (the company didn't do rural delivery), inserted a tattered, well-worn gnome, and then flawlessly resealed the package to hand off to us. We had no idea we'd brought home a parasite until we began unpacking the box. 

But I digress. 

The next leap of strategic genius came when I started giving gnomes to my mom as gifts. 

Here’s your mother’s day gnome. Don’t throw it away. I love you! Merry Christmas, here’s a Gnome! Even my dad has gotten in on it, buying my mom gnomes as gifts and garden accessories. It’s more than I could have ever hoped for.

Eventually I buckled down and really turned the tides of war by bringing the kids into the thinktank. They were more committed to the mayhem than I had thought possible, and they took no prisoners. They brought a level of inspiration to the endeavor that makes me proud as a parent. The planning, the execution, and the general understanding that pushing the limits of one’s Machiavellian creativity is how we become great, never ceases to bring a smile to my face. My oldest even painted and glazed a foot and a half tall gnome as an art project just so she could give it to her grandmother as a gift. It’s eyes look into your soul and find nothing but fault and it's smile could shake the confidence of a Viking. Gold star to my cunning and crafty daughter.

As the years have marched forward, we have grown and evolved into a well oiled gnome-deployment machine, spreading gnomes of joy throughout my parents home.  But over those same years, something has become glaringly apparent to me: for reasons that will take years longer than I have to unpack, there are certain items that trigger this reverse kleptomania in our family, and it’s not just gnomes. 

Items like ugly amazon gift bags, or tragically ugly rabbit-themed serving platters seem to leave us helpless to resist the draw of sneaking them into hiding spots around each others houses like packrats hiding treasure. Except in this case the treasure is junk, and we want them to find it...but only after we’ve left so that they can’t just traffic it back into our luggage before we leave, like drug dealers trying to smuggle cocaine across the border on the backs of the innocent.

Which brings me finally to the current iteration of this conflict: Ducks. 

Gnomes are great. I love a good gnome, and they've served me well during the war, but gnomes are a bit obvious these days. So we've branched out to ducks...very, very small ducks that lend themselves extremely well to being hidden in volume around a home. They tuck in to all the nooks and crannies that wouldn’t fit a traditional gnome, and they just sit there, watching you as you discover them one by one, their beady dead eyes mirroring your dying hope that maybe there were only a couple of them hidden around your house.

But there are more than one or two, aren’t there mom? So far, I'm aware that you’ve found 37. 

I would tell you how many more you have to find, but I don’t want to. The kids won’t tell you either; this was their idea, carried out in secret under your nose. I played my role as distraction well, and they knew to hide them where it wouldn’t be obvious until we left. 

Because while you think you have won some battles, make no mistake, the kids and I will win this war….

Me vs Memory Issues and The Inevitable Fallout

I would generally consider myself to be a fairly organized person, however what I’m about to write will make that seem rather hard to believe. If anything, being organized and on time is something I would consider a skill, but again, it will not seem like that soon.

When I say I’m organized, what I really mean is I can coordinate the shit out of things. I rarely, if ever, hand in a project late. In university, I would start my assignments early and be done weeks before they were due (obnoxious, I know), and I have organized more than one large event for the community, all without catastrophic failure.

I am good at it. I like lists.

The problem is that while I like lists, without out those lists, my life would fall into a scorched hell-scape where kids were regularly forgotten at afterschool activities, appointments would never be made, and house plants would consider themselves lucky to be watered every 2-7 months.

Without my assortment of productivity apps offering up reminders, calendars, and alarms prompting me to look at those same reminders and calendars, I would have to seriously consider hiring an assistant who’s sole purpose would be to follow me around and tell me what I’d forgotten. Which would be almost everything.

I have the memory of a problematic gold fish. I am not good at remembering anything: Names, faces, dates, words mid-sentence, book titles, directions that I just asked for (despite nodding yes as the directions are given, and truly believing this time will be different)….you name it, I can forget it. Immediately. Sometimes things will come back to me at random and inappropriate times, and sometimes things are lost forever in the dark recesses of my mind. Although confusingly, I can remember both of my parents old license plates (not mine of course) and my high school locker combo (also not useful)….cool.

I do have some mechanisms that I’ve adapted over time to help me survive when reminder apps aren’t suitable to the situation. I’m pretty good at charades, acting out what I’m trying to say when words escape me, or giving a series of random clues to help the person guess at what I mean. My husband is particularly good at this game, so when I say it’s the guy who looks like the Walmart version of the other guy from the movie we watched last night, he will know I mean Derek. This is why our marriage works. He doesn’t even seemed phased anymore, just rolls with it and plays along.

All of this makes me sound scattered and very UNorganized, but I promise, between lists, charades, and my real-life games of Guess Who, I do ok.

Except for last week, when I did not do ok. And I did not do ok in a very new, and very special way.

For the first time in the 17 years of my adult-life employment run, I went to work when I didn’t have to. I was not on the schedule, I was not called in unexpectedly, I just got up, got ready, went in and started slogging through my daily shit.

And NO ONE MENTIONED ANYTHING. Not one person looked at me quizzically, or wondered out loud why I was in the office. They all just let it happen. I didn’t realize my mistake until 12:15. I had been working through part of my lunch so I could leave a little early that day, and just happened to check my calendar to see what time my meeting started. Turns out, I could have left any fucking time I wanted. It still hurts me to think about.

So in the end I stayed because I was already there and the damage had been done, but I am not sure I could have been considered productive. It’s one thing to forget a grocery list item, it’s another thing entirely to know that my brain comprehensively failed to recognize what day it was. It threw off my vibe for the rest of the week.

So in closing, and because I’d still like to believe that I can function in mainstream society, I’m going to have to adopt a Santa Clause approach from now on; make that list, and check it at least twice to try an avoid such a fantastically stupid cock up in the future.

HO HO Hope you don't fuck that up again....

Same Santa, same.