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Thursday, January 01, 2004 Basement Files: The Mad Cow Diaries
A Holstein cow in Washington state was preliminarily diagnosed with mad cow disease last week. And while final confirmation of the deadly disease's presence in America awaits lab results from British experts, excerpts from the cow's journals reveal a mind already at odds with sanity.
Dec. 15 4:17 p.m. I'm grazing in the big field by the interstate today when I hear this loud, jarring sound from the road. I look up and I see two children, drunk with stupid joy, smiling and waving at me from the side window of a minivan. And I think, "What is it you want from me? Am I to wave back? Am I to nod my head in acknowledgement?" But I just fix them with this stare of pure hatred until their hands freeze in mid-wave, and their smiles melt into a thin line of apprehension. I guarantee you these are the same kind of children who furiously pump their fists, as if yanking on the bus stop cord, at every passing trucker. Honk for me, long-haul trucker! You, lowest of the blue-collar workers, who I would otherwise never engage in social intercourse, perform for me now! Entertain me with your melodic air horn. Who is so beguiled by horns that they spend an eight-hour road trip either honking at cows or asking others to honk for them? Morons, that's who.
Dec. 17 10:23 a.m. Don't get me wrong, I like being a cow. But sometimes I wish I weren't a ruminant. Because when you're a ruminant, your daily routine is essentially...chew and think, think and chew. And I don't know that it's healthy to spend this much time inside your head. I don't care who you are, but more than about three hours a day of hardcore thinking and you're just naturally gonna start thinking some really dark shit. And I mean, dark shit. It's sort of like Rush Limbaugh in rehab. You can't spend 12 hours a day in a group counseling session picking at emotional scabs and bawling until your chest hurts over distant fathers and alcoholic mothers. There's just a limit to how much dark shit you can entertain in one sitting. Maybe two hours of grueling, psychological excavation, tops, and you just gotta bolt down to the rehab rec room for some ping-pong. And I don't care how bad Rush's back is, I guarantee you after an hour of peering into the obsidian recesses of his own soul, that motherfucker was downstairs whacking at a little white ball like a Taiwanese master. Count on it.
Dec. 20 2:47 p.m. I'm at the feeding trough with the herd today when I mention to Clyde that I haven't been feeling that good lately. My head's all woozy and I feel kind of unsteady on my feet. Clyde's an old-timer and I'm thinking he might have some good, private counsel for me. But instead, he says loud enough for the whole herd to hear that I've ALWAYS been a hypochondriac. How every time there's a new bovine disease, I'm CONVINCED that I have it. And how I'm the ONLY cow who had a reaction to the growth hormone shots. And there's an unmistakable murmur of snickering agreement among the herd. What a shitty thing to do, you know? Like I don't feel bad enough already. And then to take a private plea for help and turn it into your public comedy routine. What an asshole. But Clyde's on a roll now, feeding off the laughter, and he says, "Hey, I know, maybe you've got Moooo-nchausen Syndrome." And I just look at him, like, "How could you, of all people, settle for cheap moo puns? I mean, it's just the laziest kind of humor." But what can I say? The whole herd's laughing like hyenas now and my heart's just about breaking in half. If there's a consolation, it's that Clyde lost about three-quarters of his tail to a combine blade and now he's defenseless against the horseflies and mosquitoes that feed off his fat ass in the summer. I used to help him out, but he can scab up like a leper now for all I care.
Dec. 22 10:52 p.m. Do you ever go to bed and ask God to kill you during your sleep? Or at least to give you a terminal illness that will kill you within a month or two? Because you want to die, but you don't want to commit suicide. You know on some level it's the clinical depression talking, but you just want to be done with it all. And you can't see yourself summoning the nerve to take your own life. I've stood on the tracks and stared down the approaching freight train, I have, but I always mosey along at the last minute. I don't know...I just can't do it. Plus, if you commit suicide, you know people are gonna talk about how "weak" you were. (As if they had any idea of the courage it took to hold on as long as you did.) And all those people whispering at your funeral about "troubling signs" of instability that only they detected. Or worse, the glory hounds who ask why they couldn't decipher your "cries for help." Jesus, how pathetic is it to need to be the center of attention at a funeral? Grow up. That's why I want a disease. That way no one blames you. I'm a victim here, struck down in my youth by a remorseless disease. And there's no talk of weakness. In fact, I'm commended for my strength, for fighting as hard as I did (even though I didn't). Yeah, a disease is definitely the way to go. |
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