As a kid, I spent a lot of time down at Gordon and Pauline Anderson’s farm on the Deep River Valley Road. Their youngest boy, Danny, was my best friend.

One afternoon, Danny and I were about to milk their cow when Danny decided some warts had to come off her teats. Cows don’t like it when you jerk off their warts. After dodging a couple of kicks, Danny hollered for me to grab the cow’s tail and bend it over her back. This causes some sort of paralysis or loss of feeling on the part of the cow.

Like a good friend, I jumped to the task. Putting my left hand at the base of the cow’s tail, I used my right hand to bend the tail back over my left. This took place during my sophomore year of high school. I didn’t make it to five feet in height until my junior year. This meant that to pull off this tail bending stunt, I had to stand on my tip toes. Even at that, my eyeballs, nose and mouth were close enough to a certain orifice under that tail that I had to go cross eyed to keep a watch on it.

Pull Quote

I hollered at Danny that I was going to let go and he kept pulling on the warts and hollering at me to hang on. His friendship meant a lot to me, but not enough to endure a face full of cow pie.

While this must have had some deadening effect on the cow, it wasn’t like she was just standing still while Danny proceeded to pull off the warts. I had to keep tippy-toeing back and forth to keep up with the cow as she kept moving from side to side.

It wasn’t long before I noticed the aforementioned orifice was involved in what appeared to my crossed eyes to be a sort of opening and closing motion. This took the seriousness of the situation to a whole new level.

I hollered at Danny that I was going to let go and he kept pulling on the warts and hollering at me to hang on. His friendship meant a lot to me, but not enough to endure a face full of cow pie. Letting go of the tail, I did some fast tippy-toeing to the side. The feeling must have instantaneously come back to that cow because she immediately let out a bawl and nailed Danny on the left side of his nose with her hoof.

For once, I was the only one unscathed.