Cows conversation

Dairy cow by hay feeding rack near Craig, Colorado,  Marion Post Wolcott, photographer, 1941, August.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

A group of milk cows from Jersey were overheard discussing happiness in a local field the other day.
"But the grass is greener ..." Blue Bell insisted just as I horned in on their conversation.
"Pardon me. I didn't mean to interrupt." I said and positioned myself on the neutral fence to listen to them B.S.
Unconcerned, they resumed their conversation.
"Anyway," continued Blue Bell. "I think it is like Dostoevsky said, 'Happiness doesn't lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.'"
She snorted and swatted flies with her tail for emphasis.
Not to be outdone, Bessie set forth her interpretation of her favorite theorists.
"What I think we have is a scale or ruler that measures individual happiness. And on that ruler, people are at various points of happiness. They move both ways on the scale to places where they are more happy and less happy in different times of their life," Bessie delivered with a moo.
"Correct me if I am wrong," interjected Buttercup. "But what I think you are saying is a variation of the old saw, 'What goes around, comes around.' That is, if the positions on the scale are physically linked, if there is accountability, then you may be up now but you could be down later."
"Well, that wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it sounds good," said Bessie kowtowing to Buttercups pushy persona.
It was just at that time that Clifford Clovinhooves, full of bovine belligerence, saw fit to bulldoze his way into the discourse.
"It's a little known fact that the ancient Mesopotamians saw happiness as an artificial state of grace and in fact I think it was Epicuris who, in the third century B.C., said 'Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not but remember what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.' so what's up with that, eh?" he said cheerfully.
As usual, Clovinhooves had once again stepped in it. Buttercup suggested they moooove on to a different subject. They had milked this one for all it was worth.
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