Bleary eyed in the morning, I used to stand at the lonely country bus stop to await the school bus. As a young girl growing up in the country, this was a normal experience-or would have been except for an irrational fear that I harbored. You see, I had this fear of cows that I just could not seem to shake. Although I knew that it was irrational, the logic of it did not matter for me. What mattered was the monstrosity that watched me from the neighboring field as I waited every morning.
Most people-wrongly- are not afraid of cows. Pictures of happy cows on commercials or dainty cow statues perpetuate this false idea. Cows are one of the most fearsome animals ever in existence. Still in doubt? Think again.
Standing at the stop sign in the misty, chilly morning, my hands would stay huddled in my pockets as I shivered and warily watched the creatures that marred my existence across the way. Mooing menacingly, they chewed their cud. Normally this would not be a cause for alarm, but again you see, these are not your cartoon cows. Munching roughly upon their cud, every chew seemed destined to be a warning for me. Stay away, they seemed to say, or this could be you. No matter how long I stood there, they did not change this attitude and instead, the chewing grew stronger taking on a ferocious intensity seconded only by the intensity I had occasionally seen my roommate take when approaching girls. The girl would say hello politely before walking away and he would stare intently, following her and hovering with a decidedly creepy focus until she would be forced to leave the room. The next day he would bemoan the fact that this girl did not like him and I would be too kind hearted to tell him that if he was put in a police lineup with a serial killer, a rapist, and a cow, the only one who would beat him for creepy, haunting intensity would be my bovine friend who scrutinized me from across the street.
The disturbing roommate would not be around for years yet. The problem at hand still was my fear of cows. Huddled behind the stop sign for protection, the occasional peek I chanced only ascertained my greatest fears. Long ago, the cow must have been a fearsome creature. Before it was domesticated and forced to be a beast of burden, the sight of a frantic, stampeding herd of cows must have been a great cause for alarm. An alarm that I, sensitive to the workings of the world, still felt. You may laugh at my fear of cows, but you were not there. The giant, two ton beast mocked me from across the way and as it chewed it’s cud, the threat of an imminent stampede was obvious. Writing this, my fear is slightly allayed either by the psychological relief of letting my fears out into the world, or by the reassuring presence of the hamburger in my hand.
