For some reason, the cows come out at Christmas. No one
understands, but we all go with it.
No, not real cows. It’s still the 100 Acre Sandbox. But someone, a long time ago and perhaps in a galaxy far, far away, someone (or someones) thought it would be funny to build plywood cows and place them strategically across out the Sandbox. This happened last time I was here, too, so, although I have no idea how long they’ve been here, it’s been at least 3-4 years.
I’m not positive how many they are because they get
separated quickly. There are at least three: a live-size grayish one, and a black
and white one about the same size and one smaller one that looks like it might
be a calf. One’s grazing. There may be more, but I can definitely think of
three.
They appear, as if they’ve migrated, around Thanksgiving and
last through the holidays. (Until this year anyway – more on that soon.) Since
we get bored here and create our own entertainment, there are people (or
possibly gremlins) who relocate the cows when no one’s watching.
I’ll write it off as testosterone, a thing that I don’t
understand, because I just don’t get it, but people seem to enjoy moving the
cows from one pasture from another. Of course, we don’t have pastures, so
people make do. They wind up all over the place: on the one field we have, the
tennis course, on a bunker somewhere and then in a bunker somewhere else.
It becomes a thing, and people try to get cute. Although I
missed it this year, someone put one on a roof; the fire department had to pull
it down because they were worried it might topple over and hurt someone. I
heard one appeared way up on a tower that very few people have access to and
some have been sneaked into people’s beds while they were away. Last year, one
somehow got into the ambassador’s office.
They make me hungry. Dating back to the last time I was
posted to the Sandbox, every time I saw the spotted cows, it made me hanker for
Chick-Fil-A. Man, I miss Chick. We have lots of chicken, but it’s not the same.
And oh, my kingdom for some waffle fries or mac and cheese.
Finally, I decided to make a Chick sign for a cow, which was
a lot harder than it sounds. I sacrificed a shipping box and rigged up a rope
made from plastic bags. I had to get the proper cow spelling and etch it out,
but the hardest part was finding the darn cow.
One particular group of people commandeered two cows.
Another cow, a smaller one, somehow was rendered headless. It was found on the
volleyball court. I noticed it, but didn’t immediately realize it didn’t have a
head; it was lying on its side and I just figured people had started cow
tipping. Yes, we have some Wisconsin residents in our midst.
The one group of people swore they hadn’t beheaded the one
cow, but they were guilty of some shenanigans with the other two, hiding them
(or so I heard) in their areas and putting them in each other’s beds. (Testosterone,
I’m telling you.) No one else had access to them for awhile, and the silly sign
sat on my desk for a couple of days before someone dropped a hint where I might
could find one.
Finally, I was able to baptize one of the cows as a
Chick-Fil-A cow. I’d hoped for the black-and-white one, but even though I was
able to find both that and the gray, the black-and-white one was in a grazing
position and its head was waaaaaay too big for the rope I’d made.
Somehow, I was – I think – able to get the sign on without
being seen, and I surreptitiously slipped away. But then, I didn’t see the cow
for a couple more days.
It appeared in a parade! We do a little Christmas parade
with our little golf carts, which was last weekend. As an aside, holy cow, what
an insane weekend that was. We did our party for one of the larger teams that
works in 12-hour shifts. It’s one party, two shifts – an AM and a PM. I worked
both, doing organization, serving food, setting up, taking down. It was seven
solid hours in my feet – three starting at 7 a.m. and four starting at 4 p.m.
and I managed to get in 16k steps without even going to the gym.
The parade was after that, and even though it meant standing
for another hour, I wanted to see it and boy, was I totally taken aback to see
my sign around the neck of a cow one of the offices had tied to the top of a
golf cart! They were drafting off my wind – taking credit for my sign. (Which
I, of course, ripped off from Chick.) One of the guys with the “float” was a friend
so I ribbed him a little about it. It was just kinda funny.
Now we’ve had a couple of days with rain and the sign is falling apart, but I managed to sneak a photo of it. I didn’t think about how weird it would look straight on. The cows are pieces of slotted plywood that slide together and the horns are one piece and the face another. If I can get another photo, I’ll add, but if not, just trust that the cow does have a head.
