The one where a cow rolls down the hill

Whilst driving through the country side looking at the foliage a month or so ago, my 15 year old nephew suddenly exclaimed from the back seat, "OH MY GOD!!  A COW JUST ROLLED DOWN THE HILL!"

*long pause*

Dan and I:  "BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAA!!"

A few things you might need to know about my nephew before assuming that Dan and I are heartless cow haters are as follows:

He is not A drama queen, he is THE Drama Queen.

He prefaces 99.99% of every single thing he says with, "OH MY GOD!"  I'm not talking about the socially acceptable "Like, oh ma gawd..."  No, not him.  His is the "OH.  MY.  GOD!!" that implies blood, gore, death, disaster, and impending doom.

Because his life is that filled with danger and risk.  Every day that he survives is a miracle.  You have no idea.  None.  Because he is the first teenager ever.

His "OH. MY. GOD!!" 's in the past have included, "OH MY GOD!!  MY JAW JUST POPPED!" and "OH MY GOD!! I JUST STEPPED ON A SMALL PEBBLE AND ALMOST ROLLED MY ANKLE!"  

(We've also heard, "OH MY GOD!  MAISY TRIED TO BITE ME!" after he gave her a treat and her puggy lips touched his finger.)

Vicious man-eating pug.

He has a gift for injury that is life threatening at best and fatal at worst.  He has nearly died just from sitting on the couch and feeling his back pop.  A splash in the face in the swimming pool has caused him to nearly drown.  A splinter in his finger has resulted in near amputation and a sore throat this summer was surely a sign of Scarlet Fever.  Or worse.

Wearing the wrong shirt outside to mow the lawn could cause complete social ostracism and no one, ever, EVER, has experienced more compelling teenage issues than he has.  No one.

He has lived, this young man.  He knows about struggle and deprivation:  He doesn't have a cellphone that can connect to the internet and give him unlimited texting and calling.  You don't know heartache until you've been unable to connect to Facebook with your mobile.

He actually said this to me after his grandparents told him he wasn't getting an iPhone:  "What kind of phone did YOU have when you were my age?"

When I was your age we used two tin cans and a string!

He doesn't just roll his eyes, he practically has a seizure.  And the wisdom he has shared with us over the past year?

I'm not sure how I lived without it before moving to New York.

Did you know, for example, that the reason I didn't get to use a calculator for Algebra my freshman year in high school and he does is because (prepare for shock and awe) Algebra has changed since then and has gotten more difficult??  After all, that was like 30 years ago.  

He also knows someone who raises black widow spiders and sells their webs to the FBI because (and this is the part that you will want to know) that's what they use to make Kevlar vests.   His "friend" was bitten nine times by a black widow so he was specifically chosen by the creator of Kevlar to breed the spiders to create the webbing because he is the only person in the world to ever survive nine black widow bites.

(I'll give you a moment to process that.)


And when asked who the first president of the United States was, he responded, "George Bush."

Now you know.

Which is why, of course, we took his announcement of seeing a cow rolling down the hill so seriously.

Because it totally could have happened.

See?

The following conversation may or may not have taken place between my husband and I immediately following the dramatic announcement that a cow had just rolled down the hill, because we are kind and caring human beings:

Me:  "OH MY GOD!  OH MY GOD!  IT'S AMISH COW TIPPING!!"

Dan:  "HEY THERE, JEDEDIAH, LOOK AS I TIP THIS COW DOWN YONDER HILL!"

Me:  "WATCH OUT THERE, ENGLISH... YON COW IS COMING YOUR WAY!"

Both of us:  "BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!"

Nephew in the back seat:  *morphing from Beavis into Butthurt*

Me:  "OH MY GOD!!  WHERE IS THE KEVLAR?  I NEED TO PROTECT MYSELF FROM THE COW HURTLING RAPIDLY TOWARDS US!"

Dan:  "OH MY GOD!!  MY JAW JUST POPPED!  IT'S A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION!"

Me:  "QUICK!  LET US KNIT A BARRIER OUT OF THE WEBBING OF BLACK WIDOW SPIDERS!!  THAT WILL SAVE US!"

Both of us:  "BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!"


Nephew in the back seat:  *staring moodily out the window plotting our imminent demise*

Me:  "At least it didn't wipe out all the other cows on the way down..."

Dan:  "The farmer would be all, 'I lost my herd in an incident of cow tipping gone bad.  Praise Jesus, I had insurance for that!'"

Me:  *laughing myself into a pants-wetting asthma attack*  "All the other cows are like warning their children of the dangers of cow tipping.  They're all, "Bossy, Matilda, Maybelle... what do you do if you see teenagers dressed in camo headed your way?  YOU RUN!!!  AND NO MATTER WHAT YOU HEAR, DON'T LOOK BACK!!!!"

Dan and I:  "BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!  ROLLING COWS!!!  HAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!"

Nephew:  *sulking in the back seat*

Me:  *for the next month and a half every time I drive past a field of cows*  "OH MY GOD!!!  DID A COW JUST ROLL DOWN THE HILL??"


 Sadly, the poor cow who may or may not have rolled down a hill has provided Dan and I with hours of entertainment.

The visual of a cow casually standing at the top of a hill eating grass and minding it's own business then suddenly tipping over and rolling to the bottom cracks us up.  Hard.

Especially when we combine it with, "OH MY GOD!!  MY JAW JUST POPPED!!  AND A COW ROLLED DOWN THE HILL!"

Meanwhile, the nephew doesn't find us funny.  At all.

Basically, our amusement at his exclamation of a rolling cow has ruined his life.

In short?

We are assholes.

Because we've told everybody.

The ramifications are that he is butthurt... a lot.


I'm assuming he'll either get glad in the same pants he got mad in, or else he'll experience another life altering event that will distract us all from cows rolling down hills.

And when it does, we will be there to support him.

Because we care.

OH MY GOD!!!  OH MY GOD!!!