It's Raining Cows, HalleMOOjah!

I've said it before, I'll say it again - I never know what news tidbit I will find in my inbox when I get up each day.  Funny, sad, irritating, infuriating - it all comes in.  And I have to say, you people certainly know what pushes my buttons by now.

So thank you to Yvonne for gifting me with this udderly hilarious news tip...

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I like traveling.   Plane, train, car, scooter, pack mule - it doesn't matter.  I just like going from place to place and seeing new things. 

Now, generally the destination is the big draw in taking a trip.  Sure, you may pass the World's Largest Ball of Used Dental Floss or Aunt Hatties House of Pubic Hair Trimmings along the way, but typically, most people have their eye on the real prize - Grandma's house, Sea World, Six Flags, the beach, Aunt Hattie's House of Public Hair Trimmings (who am I to judge a person's dream vacation?).

Car trips are actually enjoyable at this stage of my family's life.  Between the kids being 15, 14, and 11, and technology enabling me to pull a movie theater down out of the minivan ceiling, hook up an entire arcade via the numerous input plugs in the dashboard, or their ability to iPlug their ears and attend their favorite music group concerts, peace usually reigns in the Sharp vehicle.

Sure, there are those niggly little things that irritate me along the way...

Gas prices. 

I hate gas prices.

Last summer when I drove the kids from Texas to North Carolina to visit my outlaws, I began thinking it would have been cheaper to rent my own private Learjet. Or move.

Rest Areas.

I used to love stopping at rest areas as a kid. It was a chance to stretch out, eat at a picnic table (baloney always tasted better with the sound of 18 wheelers whipping by). It also gave my Mom a chance to empty the coffee can of urine she had collected from my two brothers along the way. (I’m not kidding.) My sister and I were expected to "hold it" (not an easy task if you were the sibling laying on the floor over the hump – those vibrations were killer), but my brothers got to piss into a Folgers can anytime they were bored.

These days I avoid rest areas as much as possible. Most are scary at best, and the idea of peeing alongside a bunch of transients doesn’t put me at ease. I think I’d do better with the Folgers can.

My restroom of choice – for there is one available about every five miles along any given interstate – is McDonalds. Safe, clean, easy in-and-out. Plus it gives me an excuse to buy an ice cream cone.

I like McDonald’s ice cream cones.

Don’t lecture me about it. I full well realize they have the nutritional benefits and chemical properties of a cone full of tile grout, but I like them, so shut up.

Bugs.

I hate bugs on the best of days when I have to swat one out of my face while on a walk or working in the yard. It could be that a simple spider bite has the potential to land my ass in an ER or an early grave, too, that makes me prejudiced against all things leggy.

But on a car trip? Ugh.

Forget the Count The License Plates game. How about Count The Smears On The Windshield?

My windshield after driving ten hours is an entomologist’s dream. Name a winged bug, and its DNA is sure to be found airdried to the glass. And we all know how hard bug guts dry. NASA should use vats of the creamy goop to adhere space shuttle tiles.

And don’t get me started on the size of some bugs in various parts of this country. I drove through the Everglades once, and I swear one bug that hit my windshield was so big, it didn’t die, but got pissed, grabbed hold of the wiper blade, and flipped me off before continuing on its way.

I’ve even had the occasional bird connect with my car grill. Not pretty. There is no specially made utensil available at the automotive store to help you easily remove the carcass. I have found that a pair of bar-b-que tongs, a meat fork, and a thin spatula are most effective.

But my tales of Chernobyl sized dragonflies and GPSless fowl are no match for the story Charles Everson Jr. and his wife Linda of Westland, Michigan now have to tell their grandchildren...

Chuck and his bride of one year were visiting the town of Manson in Washington state on a trip celebrating their first anniversary. They had just attended a church service and were driving back to their hotel on Highway 150 when - are you ready? – a cow fell out of the sky and landed on the hood of their minivan.

I shit you not.

Apparently the one year old, 600 pound cow named Michelle, which had been reported missing by its breeder, had wandered off - perhaps lured by those commercials promising that "Happy cows come from California" – I mean what cow doesn’t want to play Marco Polo in the fog?

So, dreaming of distant lands, freedom, a fate which would not include hanging from a meat hook or traveling through a trucker’s bowels – Michelle set about her journey ... and ended up falling 200 feet off a cliff at the exact moment Charles and Linda drove past.

Chuck says of the impact, 'It was "bam"- you just saw something come down and hit the hood. I just kept saying ‘I don’t believe this, I don’t believe this, I don’t believe this.’"

(I don't know about you, but taking the Dorothy-Wizard-of-Oz-click-your-heels-together-and-repeat-three-times-There's-No-Place-Like-Home approach probably wouldn't be my first impulse. I imagine it would be more along the lines of "Holy f*cking turdballs of Zeus! WFT issat?!?!"

File that with Jesus and his waffle iron...

While it is funny in the retelling, the reality is they escaped certain death by mere inches. Had they been in the back pew of the church and gotten out a few seconds sooner, there would surely be no grandchildren to hear this tale.

Linda and Charles were checked for injuries at a local hospital. Michelle, the sky diving bovine, actually survived the fall and impact, and was euthanized at the scene.

Michelle's owner, Rena Albertson, paid tribute to the cow: "She is very missed and I have yet to figure out how to tell our children what happened to her."

Gently, Rena, gently. Put on some soft music, perhaps California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and the Papas...and then talk of happy cows...

Marco! Polo!

In loving MOOmory of Michelle, the cow who had a cream...er, sorry, I mean DREAM.

Comments

[Katy]

When I was young and the family would travel, we'd play a game that involved cows. One person got the left side of the road, the other the right. If the cows were on your side, you counted how many and the one at the end of the trip with the most cows won. If you past a grave yard on your side of the road, you lost all your cows. I wonder, in this case, who would get to count Michelle??

[Linda Sharp to Katy]

Two things...

1. I played that game a million times as a kid.

2. You're a sick bitch.

:O)

[Kelly in PA]

Holy f*cking turdballs of Zeus? Linda, you crack me up. Our computers at work have been down for two days and when I can finally log in and get my DGMS fix that is what I have the pleasure of reading. You are the greatest. I have to find a way to work that one into my repertoire. Somehow, I will find a way, mark my words lady!!

[Bobbsey]

Holy cow!

[NH Diane]

I always had to hold the pee can too. And my father refused to stop if he didn't have to, so sometimes I held that sucker for hours. I'm still a little mad about it.