Some things are just so different from a child's perspective and an adult's perspective.
Like, when you're a kid and there's a holiday coming up, it's all fun and excitement and getting to watch TV and open presents.
But when you're an adult, it's all planning and cleaning and buying presents and sitting your kids in front of the TV while you nurse a headache.
I was thinking about this today as a friend mentioned that she'd milked a cow once as a child. I also milked a cow once as a child. I think most people I know did, it's one of those requisite childhood memories, like losing your first tooth, or going fruit picking, or going to a slaughterhouse and deciding to never eat again (don't tell me I'm the only one whose 2nd-grade class took a field trip to the local slaughterhouse).
Anyway, milking cows... Looking at it now, from an adult perspective, I find myself thinking - where the hell am I supposed to find a cow?
There aren't any in this neighborhood, that's for sure. Plenty of stray cats, and some dogs roughly the size of small cows, but no actual livestock.
Trying to milk a stray cat would certainly be a memorable experience. But let's face it, if it came down to a fight between me and a stray cat, I'd probably lose.
There is one other option, of course: wait a few years and then tamper with my kids' memories so that they think they milked a cow. This has the added benefit of doubling as a fun (for me) experiment.
Think of the possibilities. We could spend every holiday sitting on the couch watching Dora and Barney, but in 10 years the kids will remember the fun trips we took to the beach and the aquarium and wherever it is that cows live. I just have to be careful not to get mixed up and try to convince them that we milked cows at the aquarium or something like that. (They may also wonder where they had the time to pick up an encyclopedic knowledge of Dora.)
I can't help wondering, did one of my parents (you know which one of you I mean...) have the same brilliant idea 20-odd years ago? Or did you actually find a cow? Either way, I could use some tips.
Like, when you're a kid and there's a holiday coming up, it's all fun and excitement and getting to watch TV and open presents.
But when you're an adult, it's all planning and cleaning and buying presents and sitting your kids in front of the TV while you nurse a headache.
I was thinking about this today as a friend mentioned that she'd milked a cow once as a child. I also milked a cow once as a child. I think most people I know did, it's one of those requisite childhood memories, like losing your first tooth, or going fruit picking, or going to a slaughterhouse and deciding to never eat again (don't tell me I'm the only one whose 2nd-grade class took a field trip to the local slaughterhouse).
Anyway, milking cows... Looking at it now, from an adult perspective, I find myself thinking - where the hell am I supposed to find a cow?
There aren't any in this neighborhood, that's for sure. Plenty of stray cats, and some dogs roughly the size of small cows, but no actual livestock.
Trying to milk a stray cat would certainly be a memorable experience. But let's face it, if it came down to a fight between me and a stray cat, I'd probably lose.
There is one other option, of course: wait a few years and then tamper with my kids' memories so that they think they milked a cow. This has the added benefit of doubling as a fun (for me) experiment.
Think of the possibilities. We could spend every holiday sitting on the couch watching Dora and Barney, but in 10 years the kids will remember the fun trips we took to the beach and the aquarium and wherever it is that cows live. I just have to be careful not to get mixed up and try to convince them that we milked cows at the aquarium or something like that. (They may also wonder where they had the time to pick up an encyclopedic knowledge of Dora.)
I can't help wondering, did one of my parents (you know which one of you I mean...) have the same brilliant idea 20-odd years ago? Or did you actually find a cow? Either way, I could use some tips.
I also milked a cow when I was younger, and it was during a class trip.
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