COW-COW BOOGIE

So there I am at a local eatery listening to the three cows at the next table loudly ranting incessantly about the most inane things. They are very typical of the town I live in, a university village in North Carolina (you figure it out). I’m naming no names today.

These women are doing what is euphemistically called “catching up”. I can tell from their conversation (entirely too audible for pleasure) that they haven’t seen each other in quite some time and they are playing the old game 20 Questions. Cows catching up. Get it?

“So where have you been?” “Who are you married to now?” “How is your family?” “Did you make that dress?” “Where did you buy it?”

And, oddly enough, one of the cows is asking AND answering all the questions while the other two eat. (Or is one chewing the fat while the other two chew their cuds?) They are attempting to enjoy their food and the questioner is occasionally getting a bite or two into her gaping hole of a loud mouth while the majority of her black beans end up on her tacky blouse. “Did you make that blouse?” “Where did you get it? Fine Feathers?”

And my only question is “WHO CARES? SHUT UP AND EAT!” This whole scenario is a testimonial to TV dinners, Swanson or Healthy Choice. Take your pick and head directly to your microwave. Do not pass go.

So it got me to thinking about cows and how a lot of people use that word to describe certain females. And I got to wondering: what really is a cow? If I had been blessed at the time with a camera with sound equipment, I could have had evidence of what a cow is in thousands of pixels acceptable in any court of law in a triple murder case.

So I asked out loud “What is a cow?” Of course, the cows didn’t hear me because they were too busy yaking (is there a female yak and is she called a cow?) They were too busy spitting black beans all over the place. So various people began to give me their definitions of cow.

One waitress said “a bovine” and walked away looking for more tips. Another said that a cow is a female bovine. So I asked, “What, then, is a bull? It is a male cow or what? Someone immediately told me that a steer was a male cow who has, or rather doesn’t have his testicles any longer. And then somebody said that a cow was a female bovine who had produced at least one calf.

And then I asked, “Well aren’t there other cows? Like elephants females, lady rhinos, whales, seals? What about yaks? I needed to know. I began to relax in the knowledge that Mr. Google would tell me my answers.

Apparently, “cow” is a also derogatory term used to describe a woman, especially a fat or stupid one. That’s what Mr. Webster says. I was beginning to get tired of the whole thing when the three cows (who perfectly fit Mr. Webster’s description) asked the waitress cow to pack up their leftovers to take home to the barn, I guess, to aid in lactose production for the night. And they got up, walked out of my favorite restaurant and didn’t even leave a tip. And I had finished dancing my “Cow-Cow Boogie.” Or had I?

What, then, I ask you, is a cowboy? Better start up the music again.

C. 2008 Richard C. Wall