There’s an old joke. A horse walks into a bar and, straight away, all conversation ceases. The creature carefully puts one hoof in front of the other on his way to the bar, the sound of his horseshoes the only thing to break the silence. Finally, he sidles up and sits himself down on a stool as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. The bartender then leans over to the horse and says: why the long face?
There’s an old joke. A horse walks into a bar and, straight away, all conversation ceases. The creature carefully puts one hoof in front of the other on his way to the bar, the sound of his horseshoes the only thing to break the silence. Finally, he sidles up and sits himself down on a stool as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. The bartender then leans over to the horse and says: why the long face?
It’s said that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. I suppose that means it’s ‘open season’ so far as the other orifices are concerned. Apparently the term is derived from a time when a horse was considered the ultimate gift. Obviously, this predates the invention of the I-pad. Whilst I’m sure that a gift horse is an incredible act of generosity, wrapping it up must have been an absolute nightmare.
But whilst there is a long held understanding that you should never call a gift horse’s commitment to quality dentistry into question, the same cannot be said for cows. Unlike horses, cows have inspired very few turns of phrase. Indeed, you can try until the cows come home to think of some, but are unlikely to come up with more than one or two. It’s a shame because it suggests a lack of interest on our part. For all our reliance on our four-legged friends, we know so little about them.
When it comes to cows, you can eat them, drink them and wear them (or not, as the case may be). We also know that they have four stomachs, like eating grass and are responsible for a high proportion of the world’s methane output. One day I imagine that this incredible power will be harnessed for good instead of evil, but until that day arrives please accept my assurance that it is no accident that cows are left outdoors.
Sometimes the obvious needs to be said. It is for this reason that the lids of take away coffees are labelled ‘hot contents’ and that trams have posters warning patrons of how unpleasant it is to be hit by a moving car after alighting. To this illustrious list should be added the following: don’t get a cow drunk. Not even a little bit tipsy. Take my word; they can get downright nasty when they’re the worse for wear, to say nothing for when severely hung over. We did not set out to intoxicate a cow. That, of course, would be ridiculous. Rather, we did it just as any normal human would – wholly by accident.
At my father’s farm, there are quite a few old fruit trees in the yard. Once, these trees would have been some of thousands stretching as far as the eye could see. They are all that remains of a distant past in which the district was effectively a giant orchard. However, the trees have been left largely to their own devices over the years, resulting in some interesting hybrid varieties developing. In the case of my father’s apples, they are a unique cross between red delicious and a plank of wood. Not that cows are fussy.
They were milling about in the paddock when we decided to feed them some apples. Fruit lay all over the yard, so it seemed only logical to throw a few over. What we failed to take into account is that cows have four stomachs. As they digest fruit, the sugar turns into alcohol. Put simply, a cow is pretty much a moonshine still on legs. Feeing a cow a quantity of apples does not satisfy their hunger so much as it does get them rolling drunk.
We were delighted to see how enthusiastic the cows were. Within moments they were pressed right up against the fence. In our folly, we kept feeding them apples, barely noticing as things became increasingly rowdy. This manifested itself in some of the creatures starting to perform so-called party tricks including standing on two legs and setting each other’s methane expulsions alight. Perhaps, inevitably, it all went downhill from there. One cow, in an act of unintended irony, was engaging in horseplay when it managed to get an apple stuck in its throat. My father was forced to jump the fence and perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre, which is no easy thing when you’re dealing with a five hundred kilo quadruped that’s had a little too much.
We immediately returned the apples to the ground from whence they came and backed away from the fence. Leaving them to sleep it off, by all reports they awoke the next day which substantial hangovers. My concern, of course, was that having developed a taste for alcohol, they were simply biding their time before escaping from the paddock to the nearest pub.
Last Friday night, my father looked up to see not a single cow. En masse, they had decided to head to the 21st Century Dance Club in Frankston. Sadly, the bouncers took one look them and said, ‘not with those hooves.’ Dejected, they watched as a horse walked past the security guards and into the 21st Century Dance Club whereupon it went straight up to the bar only for the barman to ask, ‘why the long face?’ Hearing this, the cows simply looked at each other and said, ‘Well, how do you like them apples?’