Dear diary,
When tomorrow unfolds, I catch a bus to the snowy mountains and do some downhill skiing. I bring a couple of my cows along, and they enjoy our date tremendously. Then I get stuck in a snowbank, because I wander away from the sanatorium where I am staying; but my cows rescue me.
So we stop at the cafeteria and order three marmalades. I sit at the biggest table in the room, as usual, because I want all the other diners to look at me and wonder and ask “Why?” and whisper “He cannot be serious.” The bigness of the table is so that I can let my cows stand on top of it, while I sit politely as we all three savor our fruit preserves.
A large bearded man keeps staring at me, from his table six rows over where he is eating with his wife and two children. At a certain point, he rises and approaches me and sez:
“Hey mister, do you know that both of your heifers are standing on the tabletop?”
“Yes,” I reply. Then I add: “The reason I encourage this type of behavior in my cattle is to provide a stark contrast with everyone else who claims to be a friend of animals; for most people who keep cows as housepets do not allow these creatures to prance on the furniture. They deny their bovines access to the sofa; thus, instead, the poor souls must stand on the rug to nap. These unkind owners also force their cows to stay beneath the dining table, just as if they were common canines! So they must settle for catching the scraps and crumbs that tumble down to the underworld of the floorboards, instead of feasting alongside their equals in a chair of their own. — But I myself do not believe in treating my cows like they are house-dogs (for the record, I don’t believe in treating any type of pet like a housepet — if they must remain indoors, I’d just as soon treat them as household gods), so not only do I offer my cows a seat at the table, in the sense that they can renegotiate their contracts at the start of each fiscal quarter, but I actually cede to them the higher ground and grant unrestricted access to the tabletop, which they probably judge to be an extremely smooth pasture. Should they begin to graze, so be it; yet, if they choose to extemporize a table-dance, then the choreography of the routine automatically remains their intellectual property. But, as you see, we all have a weakness for marmalade — we never turn down an opportunity to…”
“I beg your pardon,” the large bearded man interrupts, “but you are talking too much, and I am not interested in anything you are saying. I really only asked about the cows on the table because I was hoping that you might allow me to sample a taste of their fresh milk. They look like milch kine, am I right?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” I say. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you with my grandiloquence. — And, as for a taste test: Sure, we can do that right here and now. I’ll squeeze the utter of this one nearest to us; and, if you just bend down slightly and hold your mouth open, the stream of milk should land right in.”
“OK: a-a-ah…” the man kneels down and opens up.
“No, don’t say ‘ah’,” I slap his face hard; “for, if you’re engaged in a vocalization the moment the milk is making its entrance, it’s prone to get gargled. Instead, simply leave your mouth wide open, like I said, and hold your peace. When the cow is done squirting, you may close your mouth and swallow.”
“Sorry,” the large, bearded man slaps himself harder than I just did, apparently to help himself focus. Then he gapes silently this time...
“Goo-oo-ood,” I say. “Now I’ll count to three and then squeeze. One… two… three.”
White milk in a brief graceful arc jets out of the udder and finds a red home in the bearded man’s mouth. It makes a “drippy faucet” sound when it comes to rest.
“Mmm, that’s good,” sez the man. “Thank you kindly.”
“Any time!” (The cow moos.)
After our treat, we leave the cafeteria and head straight to the roller derby rink to practice our figure skating.
§
After skating, I toss my roller blades over my shoulder and they land in a clear cylindrical shuttle that looks like a giant bullet, whose side panel, which had been open, now slides shut of its own accord and seals hermetically. One of my cows then trots over and, either by accident or semi-intentionally, clops its forehoof down on the button labeled “Send item home.” As a consequence, the pneumatic delivery contraption sucks the transparent bullet thru its digestive system, which consists of millions of meters of long, curvy, clear air-tubes; and ultimately my skates drop out of the atmosphere and land next to the hay bale that I sleep on.
No comments:
Post a Comment