I was blow drying my hair this morning and thinking about cows. I’m originally from the Midwest, and occasionally, we think about cows. (Oh, like you don’t?)

I got to thinking about cows because my mother called and asked about Thanksgiving (see previous post), which got me thinking about our Australian guests, which got me thinking about kangaroos, which naturally reminded me of cows. No, really. Follow me on this one.

The same Australian couple had complained awhile back about the kangaroo/tourist problem. While down under on business, one of them was shepherding along a Swedish colleague, who shall now and forever be known as the Kangaroo Whisperer. Ever single time they saw a kangaroo, the colleague felt compelled to stop and make friends with it. This was, one imagines, something of a process. And Australia? Lot of kangaroos. The situation went from amusing to frustrating rather quickly.

Kangaroos are to Australians as cows are to Midwesterners, or so went my logic. Imagine if a business associate demanded you stop at every fence post so that he could coo at Bessie? Do you know how many cows there are in the Midwest? Dairies full! And while I think kangaroos are much more interesting than cows – no cow in the Hundred Acre Wood was there? – our Australian friends probably would not agree.

They know kangaroo secrets, just as Midwesterners know cow secrets. For example, I can tell you that the cow is the second most retarded – er, mentally challenged – barnyard animal, right behind the chicken, which will eat its own feathers for no apparent reason. This is why, despite living in close proximity to the creatures, we eat hamburgers with considerably more relish (the feeling, not the condiment) than the rest of the country. Okay, we probably use more of the condiment, too. Mmmm. Pickles.

We have no guilt. None. Why? Cows are stupid. They’re like tree stumps that eat. Those “Happy Cows Come From California” commercials – you know, the ones where cows play practical jokes and run betting pools – could only have been created by someone who did not go to a high school next door to a dairy farm. (You can only imagine what football games were like when the wind turned.)

Now, horses are a whole other story. That’s a farm animal I can get behind. Not that you should literally stand behind a horse. Horses get notions. A horse might get the notion to stick a hoof up your nose if you hung around back there too long. But that’s another blog post…