House Church Talk - Final Debate

[jim sutton]

I think my favorite scene in "Twister" (the movie) is where the young lady in 
the back seat of a truck (that's chasing after a tornado) is talking on a cell 
phone, saying, "I've gotta go... we've got cows!"  She says this because cows 
are literally flying past their windows, caught up in the whirlwind the 
chasers had been watching -- from a distance.

And thinking of those cows makes me think of a little story I wrote a while 
back.  I may have posted this here some months ago.  I don't remember. 
 Anyway, it's still the proper season for summer reruns.

Final Debate --

As I recall, it was a few summers ago, on a farm in northern or maybe central 
Indiana.  I think it happened something like this:

Horse: I overheard two humans talking yesterday, while they cleaned out the 
barn. One of them said that the moon was made out of cheese.

Cow: Oh, Moo! Did they say what kind?

Horse: Well, it almost sounded like he said it was green cheese.

Cow: Humph! I never heard of any green cheese. You must be mistaken.

Horse: Now don't go saying that. I know what I heard. The moon is made of 
cheese.

Cow: I know a few things about cheese. More than you do, I dare say. If the 
moon is made of cheese, then it must be a hard white cheese. Although, it does 
sometimes look a little like a bleu cheese.

Horse: Nay, nay. He didn't say anything of the sort. He said it was green 
cheese -- or something that sounded like "green".

Cow: You know, Horse, you do display your ignorance. I am a cow and cows know 
about dairy. I'm telling you that the moon is not green at all. It's mostly 
white, sometimes yellow, and sometimes big and blotchy. Never green. And there 
is no green cheese that I know of, anyway.

Horse: Oh, you cows think you're so smart. But you forget that humans have the 
telescopes, and they have big rockets. They also have lots of books, and 
schools, and TV and stuff. If they say the moon is made of green cheese, then 
that's good enough for me.

Cow: Now don't get all smarty-pants with me! Cheese comes from cows (and a few 
goats), and never from humans at all. They don't know cheese from bread. I 
know what I'm talking about, and you should just stick to your oats.

Horse: Well, prove to me that the moon is made of white or bleu cheese. Show 
me a piece of the moon, you silly cow . . .

And so the argument grew and grew, so that neither the horse nor cow got any 
sleep at all that night. And this was nothing new. The two had developed quite 
a habit of debating endlessly and bitterly about things they knew either 
little or nothing about.

As you might expect, since she got no sleep, the next day the cow gave almost 
no milk. Unfortunately, that was one time too many. The farmer hauled her over 
to the butcher for processing. She was a little old and tough, but she made 
into good hamburger and sausage.

That same day, the horse was so tired and sleepy that he walked right into a 
gopher hole while plowing, and broke his leg. And so he was sent off to the 
glue factory, since he'd never be able to plow again.

The farmer shook his head as he headed out to get another cow and another 
horse. Two good animals that seemed to go bad so quickly. It just made no 
sense.

Jim