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.