Moooooooooooo

PURPLE COWS

 

Little Pinky, the newest born calf on the Bronson's farm, is absolutely adorable. Breeders and farmers Joe Bronson has never met, are invading his territory, disturbing his herds, his very life. Pinky is still wobbly, still nursing from his mama but is alert and kicks away any one who gets close enough to take a picture of him. He seems shy, wants to be left alone, not bothered. But– what he wants and what he gets are two very different things. The Cranston Globe has somehow managed to get a full photo of Pinky, highly enhanced color, on the front page of their evening paper. A parade of strangers, mother's pulling along toddlers, teens on bikes, veterinarians, medical bags in hand, bring up the rear of the line, just as the sun sinks below the horizon.

 

Pinky is a phenomena, good enough for Ripley, but Joe wants no part of the hullabaloo and hires a few big bruisers to keep the nosey people off his property. They are privy to the changes going on. In only a week, Pinky is about as big a cow as it should ever be. Grammar school teachers bring their classes on busses to see the strange pink calf/cow, hurry them back to their busses when Little Pinky suddenly gets antsy, aims himself right at a full grown calf and has his way with her.  Joe is dumbfounded but pleased.

 

The new calf is a lighter pink that seems to get darker every day. In a week it is a deep purple. It's extra long tongue is pink with two fairly large purple dots. More lookee loos flock to Joe's cattle ranch. He keeps a pitchfork handy to scare them away but never really means to jab anyone. His older cows keep their distance, may wonder who, what, these strange creatures are.

 

Fall falls. The winds blow hard. The cows are taken inside the huge barns where they are still milked by hand. Little Pinky has become Big Pinky and will not be disgraced, embarrassed to have cold metal clamps on her udder, waits for Joe Bronson to use his warmed hands on her private part. Joe obliges all thru the fall until his hands begin to itch badly, bad enough for him to visit the county's best dermatologist who writes out an Rx for some kind of white ointment and tells Joe to wear plastic gloves when he does the milking. Dr. McCormick has no idea what is causing the itching. Money thrown out, time wasted. The itching increases, purple dots begin to appear on Joe's hands, move up his arms. Food doesn't taste right. A long look in his bedroom mirror scares him almost to death. His face is red, no, it's purple. Timidly he sticks out his tongue, looks at it from as far away as he can get from his mirror and still see himself. He screams to noone, throws his tube of salve at his image and faints.

 

As he gathers his senses he hears his herd of cows mooing, wanting to be fed. Joe has sort of come to a solution of why he AND his cows are turning pink and purple. When they only grazed on grass, enjoyed the outdoors, they were black, brown, white, all normal cow colors. Then a new vet suggested Joe's herd would fatten up, do better if he switched to soy, legumes, corn. Joe trusted that vet, added soy and corn to their diet. He too loves corn on the cob, corn soup, corn fritters. His redness faded slowly.

 

However, he realized something else was bothering him when he sat on a hard wooden chair. His rear end hurt, worse and worse. His regular doctor suggested he not wait any longer and see a proctologist. Good old Joe, did as told. The proctologist advised him immediately to have surgery as something like a tail was growing from the end of his spine. 

 

Joe didn't know what to think, to say, but as he left the doctor's office, his intended 'goodbye', came out as a moo. He has passed now and surely  would be proud to be included in the latest 'Believe It or Not.'