Again......the Poor Ole Horse....

A while back I wrote (uncharacteristically I might add, considering my acute disdain for poetry) a little poetic diddy about the Poor Ole Horse That Is Really A Cow (that grazes in the pasture in front of the big old yellow house on Old Olympic Highway) that Dad comments on whenever we drive by it.

Well, I have an update. This happened two days ago, on our way home from visiting Mom at the nursing home.

We were just coming up on the POHTIRAC and Dad goose-necked so suddenly I was afraid he was going to wrench his neck out of joint.

"HEY!" he hollered at me, breaking the ten minute silence that had filled the inside of the Jeep since our departure from the nursing home. I assumed the "HEY" meant I was supposed to stop.

I didn't.

You might wonder why.

Well I'll tell you.

Because Dad ALLways makes some kind of "Hey!" comment when we pass the POHTIRAC and usually, it's something along the lines of "Hey! Look at that! They got a new horse! Poor old horse....." or "Hey! When did they put that poor old horse in that pasture? Poor old horse...." You get my drift. Dad's memory is pretty porous. So it wasn't all that noteworthy that he suddenly blurted out a big old HEY! as we were passing the POHTIRAC.

But back to the other day...

So anyway..........

"HEYYY!" Dad hollered at me again. This time it was louder and, frankly, kind of annoying. so I answered back a little impatiently.

"WHAT?!"

I slowed the car down a little, but I did not stop.

"WAIT!" he kept on, kind of frantically now.

I still didn't stop.

"HOLD ON!" he pleaded, now waving the air with his left hand, desperately demonstrating what he wanted me to do (in case I didn't quite understand what "WAIT!" really meant).

I still didn't stop.

This is when he finally pulled out the Captain Fleener card (which, these days, he really only uses for the really critical moments in his life.......like wanting to stop the car so he can get a closer look at a horse.......that's really a cow) as he flat-out commanded me. "PULL OVER!!!"

Since I was born, NOBODY ignores the Captain Fleener card.

I pulled over.

We ended up almost directly in front of the pasture where the you-know-what was happily grazing along the opposite fence.

Now picture a pause of about 25 seconds as Dad turns and cocks his face this way and that, trying to take in all the visual data his macular degenerated eyes would allow. He finally turned back to look me straight in the face. His expression?.....Well, remember when you first found out that Santa Claus was really your parents? Yep. That's the expression. Then he said to me...

And you all know what he said, right?

Right. But I'm gonna tell ya anyway.

He looked me straight in the eyes and said, with a sort of Well-I'll-be-damned tone, "Is that a cow?"

And I nodded. "Yes, Dad," and still nodding, "yes it is."

Then he said, (of course) "Well, I'll be damned."

There was a short pause as he looked back at the cow-that-used-to-be-a-horse.

"I thought it was a horse."

I nodded again, "I know Dad."

And his parting words, as I pulled back onto Old Olympic Highway?

Again, you all know what's coming, but I'm gonna tell ya anyway.

Wait for it.........

"Poor old cow."