A Mooooving Tale

You often hear about strange things that happen to people. Weird and wonderful things. Worrying or frightening things. Funny or sad things.

Usually we just smile (or frown) and think “poor bugger” or something similarly compassionate and heartfelt ….. and then we just forget about it. Other times these stories become like folklore and give the person who endured the happening (or the families and friends thereof) many happy years of entertainment as the story gets retold, rehashed and sometimes even reinvented!

One such folklorish story that (happily!) needs no embellishment is the one about a close relative of mine ….. and a cow…in the middle of the city.

He is an accountant. Very respectable person. Responsible job. Nice office in town. Normally this chap (whom, for the purposes of this story, I shall call Pierre) likes to live a quiet life, mind his own business and not draw unwarranted attention to himself.

And that’s exactly what he was doing one summer’s morning as he drove his car to work; wending his way through congested city traffic; half listening to the ABC news and presumably thinking about calculations and fiscal responsibility, as you do if you are, unlike me, a lover of numbers. (Personally I would rather think about decaying compost than anything remotely numerical. Luckily it’s not up to people like me to keep the world’s economy in order. Phew!).

Anyway, it was a warm morning and Pierre had his car window wound down in order to capture the slight breeze that flitted between the tall city buildings. He was clearly in the ‘zone’ – a zombie-like state reserved for regular commuters to stop them from going insane. Not really thinking about anything in particular (creepy numbers notwithstanding) and certainly not thinking about the possible ramifications of being stuck at the lights with a cattle truck in the next lane. And that was his mistake.

For just as he was about to take off on the green light, something rather unexpected happened. He felt upon his window-side arm a warm, slushy wetness and witnessed in horror a rush of browny-green pooey slime jettisoning down the side of the truck and all over his hitherto dignified, white-shirted personage! Arggh!!

I suspect a few words not befitting a respectable, number-loving citizen may have similarly jettisoned out of poor Pierre’s mouth as he struggled to come to grips with what had just happened. Pooed on? In the middle of the city? By a cow? What the….?

So Pierre did what any good accountant with cow poo all over his body driving in the middle of the city would do. He kept driving to work. Well, I guess it’s true that we often revert to routine in times of stress, so Pierre’s natural instinct was to head for his comfort zone. But how could the office be his comfort zone when he was decorated in smelly cow dung? It’s not like no-one would notice!

Upon arrival he sat in the basement car park to consider his position. Could he risk being late for a very important meeting by going home for a shower and shirt change? Or was his shirt salvageable with a towel-down? Would anyone really care?

He decided to phone his office to explain his predicament. Predictably there were plenty of hearty guffaws coming through the phone as his tale of woe quickly circulated around the office. (And I suspect there were many hysterical retellings in pubs and at workmates’ homes later that day).

Pierre’s boss finally suggested he go home and attend to his ablutions. After all, who would want to do business deals with a human dung beetle?

Well anyway, it all ended well. Pierre got cleaned up. The business deal got closed; and so did Pierre’s driver’s-side window whenever driving alongside trucks in the future.

A very wise move, Pierre. A very wise moooooove, indeed!