When the weather turns hot and humid, my picturesque small town smells like it has a monopoly on baking cow pies. For those who might assume this is some backwoods specialty involving a pie crust and ground beef, that dish goes by the name cheeseburger pie or even shepherd’s pie. (Both delicious. Give them a try.) Cows make cow pies themselves after ruminating on their cud until every bit of nutrition has been absorbed. They are very resourceful that way. I could say much more about cows, but most people are lucky to make it this far without their eyelids slamming down like shutters against a storm of boredom.
This morning, the smell of cow pies hung over the town. By the time I strolled down Main Street to the grocery store, I no longer noticed how my nose burned. I did buy a pie to heft home with my other purchases though, so maybe a part of me still acknowledged the prevailing message carried on the wind.
By the time I stepped back out into natural light, the desire to finish my brisk walk and then sink into my comfy chair for a good read while sampling my pie dominated every thought. With such complicated ideas already filling my head, one would hope nothing could distract me from my goal. On any other day, that would be true. Today proved different.
Honk! Honk!
“Moo!”
My jaw dropped to the ground and my groceries almost followed. Bicycles clustered along the normally calm roadways. That alone would cause confusion. But each bike bore a bovine rider. That’s cows, people! No bulls, just cows. One even squirted milk wildly as she struggled to keep pedaling with her little hooves. I swear her moo sounded more like a laugh as milk squirted in my eye causing me to almost drop my bags. Again.
As the automatic door whirred to life behind me, I turned to see my former principal exiting the grocery store. He greeted me with a friendly wave before heading toward the high school like bizarre events weren’t on display all around him. In fact, he offered friendly waves to the unusual bicyclists he passed.
That moved my attention from the cows to my fellow humans. Foot traffic doesn’t plague our streets but generally a few people are out and about, exercising or gossiping or running quick errands. I looked for them and scanned their faces. None of them seemed to notice the bovine bikers. The few who recognized that bicycles passed by them acted as if this sort of thing happened every day.
Finally, I moved from my spot just outside the doors. I approached the nearest human and smiled in as friendly manner as I could muster with my growing anxiety.
“Do you notice anything odd?”
She stared at me blankly for a moment and then opened her mouth to release a slow and discerning, “moo.”
This time my bags did fall from my grasp. Groceries spilled out on the ground around me. I joined them, fainting in a heap. My last thought expressed gratitude that my head landed on a comforting pillow of freshly baked pie.
—
When I came to, the doctor was rubbing my hand. “There you are. Thank goodness.”
Relieved to be addressed in English instead of moo, I grinned back her.
“You feeling okay? You bumped your head. Thank goodness for the pie. I think it saved you from a concussion but your hair might need a few washes before the blueberry comes out.” She continued to examine me as she talked, shining a light in my eyes and checking my pulse.
“So what exactly happened?” I asked tentatively.
“What do think happened?” She countered with an amused grin.
I looked down at my hands and shrugged my shoulders. She laughed softly and patted my hand.
“With the heat, the methane levels reached near toxic levels. If anything unusual happened, it was your mind coping with a lack of oxygen. You stay here and relax. We aren’t releasing any of our patients until the fire department helps get the methane levels down.”
“Oh?”
The doctor heard the implied question. “They have masks to help them breath so they are helping the farmers scoop poop.”
I nodded understanding and rested my head on my pillow. Soon I slept and dreamt of moo.
~~~
The thought of cow pies always makes me giggle. My chemistry class in high school performed a lab experiment that should have resulted in fudge. A classmate who comes from a long line of farmers and is now a vet declared that most of us actually made cow pies. Kind of makes you wonder what kind of grass was going through that chemistry class, am I right?
Also, I am not a doctor. Please don’t diagnose yourself based on my stories. That is so many steps lower than diagnosing yourself via webmd.
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