Cows on Parade

It was 4am on a Tuesday. Yes I know it is an odd time for a story like this one to start, but then again, you don’t know what I’m writing, and I’m not so sure that I can tell you exactly what happened myself…

The darkness of the room couldn’t hide the devilish glow in their ceramic eyes. Why I couldn’t see it until this ungodly time in the morning is beyond my range of intellectual thought. I heard the mechanical “Moos” of my precious “Build-A-Bear” Bessie and I worried that Jake got a hold of her and was using her stuffing as a way to tell me that I wasn’t to ignore him any longer. It wasn’t my Golden Retriever or even my cat making Bessie moo… it was my small; 12 is a small number when there are over a 150, collection of “Cow On Parade” cows that I ordered from eBay.

The leader of these insanely decorated cows was Moolin The Wizard. With a wink of his eye and a nod of his head he could do some legendary things in the art of magic. This particular wink and nod animated 11 porcelain figurines, scared my cat and nearly squeezed the stuffing from Bessie. Bessie didn’t moo but what escaped her tiny speaker was a word or a name that I will never forget for as long as I live. Even after hearing the name/word I made a mental note to dissect that voice box from her stuffing.

“Nikola” is what I heard. What it meant I knew, unfortunately, would take me to Oklahoma to find the most obscure thing; a stalker who imitated a police officer on weekends.

Just don’t ask me how I got to Oklahoma or how I found myself in the back of a police cruiser lifting up the cushions looking for spare change and a handcuff key. I wasn’t under arrest but I was suckered into the cuffs by the police imposter because she told me it was the only way to save my favorite cow in my collection. She threw Bessie in the trunk with empty evidence bags, “Police Line – Do Not Cross” tape, road flares and the spare tire. Moolin The Wizard was firmly placed in her hand. Nikola waved it like the porcelain cow was a police revolver.

For fifteen hours we drove around Oklahoma. My sense of direction is now worse than it ever was. Even though Nikola assured me that we drove in mostly a straight line I could’ve sworn we were driving in circles. I saw the same flatness were ever she led me. Finally she stopped the car, removed the handcuffs, and released the trunk latch of the car. She looked at me longingly and said, “Dance!”

“What” I responded, “I’ve just been crammed into a backseat of a car with my arms behind my back with handcuffs two sizes too small and now you want me to entertain you? F-O-R-G-E-T it!”

“Then f-o-r-g-e-t saving your precious.”

I, normally, don’t dance but this is fine with me because I have two feet that never work in conjunction with one another. So I did the first dance step I could think of, and since I saw a barn behind my stalker police woman, I put my hands in my armpits and waved my arms like a set of chicken wings. I took a couple of hops, spun around and lowered my body closer to the ground. Three of four minutes later, Nikola was laughing at me and handing me my Bessie, where I immediately removed the voice box.

I don’t know how my trip to Oklahoma saved my Bessie. I don’t know how Nikola fits into the ceramic cows plot to take over of my cow world. I don’t know how my public will even receive this story but I’m glad that this “Truth or Dare” challenge is over and I survived to write about it.

The End