SneezingCow.com » oops!

Fatherhood is Distasteful

MikePerry — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:59:16 +0000

My nearly-teenaged niece was visiting my nearly-teenaged daughter this weekend. Much girly giggling in the living room while everyone was getting ready for church. I had just showered after chicken chores and was in the kitchen getting some food when my niece came in the kitchen with a slim aerosol bottle. “Try this,” she said. “It fizzes!”

I extended my finger and she sprayed a little curl of foam on the pad, and indeed the foam popped and fizzed. A-ha, I thought, someone has finally combined the chemistry of Pop Rocks with the technology of aerosol cheese. I shook my head in the old I’ll-be-danged manner, and popped the finger in my mouth.

Later, when I got done rinsing and spitting and rinsing and spitting and pawing at my mouth like a dog with a lip-full of quills, and when the hysterical teenaged giggling subsided, I had a look at the can:

“WILD APPLE DAFFODIL SHIMMER FIZZ BODY MOUSSE”

Setting aside for a moment the idea that a man who would eat WILD APPLE DAFFODIL SHIMMER FIZZ BODY MOUSSE is in charge of the keeping and raising of daughters, let us consider that this same man, who considers himself moderately well-read and traveled was utterly ignorant of the existence of SHIMMER FIZZ BODY MOUSSE of any formulation, and is officially prepared to tender his letter of resignation as soon as he can figure out where to mail it. Why do I get the feeling that the road ahead is nothing but high-speed hairpins overlooking an endless canyon?

P.S. In her defense, please note that at no time did my niece suggest I actually eat the stuff.

P.P.S. On the back of the can, where it says “NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS”? No longer true.

Passed Out Sober in Panama

MikePerry — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:40:54 +0000

We’d been there all day, chasing kids, playing in the surf, dancing around jellyfish… Told my brother-in-law (mi cunado) I needed “five minutes” and when I woke up the sun was at a different angle and the whole family was packed up and gone…but my sister-in-law snuck back down for this shot. Never have had a drink in my life, but I bet everyone who walked by wondered where all the empty bottles were…

That’s Prolly Gonna Void the Warranty

MikePerry — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:23:16 +0000

Let’s say you rise from your desk with all the grace of a concussed cow and manage to flip your computer monitor on to the floor. What sort of enduring fractal might result?

Montaigne Yanks My Chain

MikePerry — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:22:21 +0000

So let’s say you’re going through Montaigne’s Essays, essentially cherry-picking quotes for a magazine piece you’re working on, and you come to this passage:

Like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, and bring it home in the beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young; so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there, out of books, and hold it at tongue’s end, only to spit it out and distribute it abroad.

My New Intelligence Test…

MikePerry — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:13:06 +0000

…is not perfected yet, but it will be based on a sliding scale in which your intelligence quotient is inversely proportional to the number of times you push the button on the coffee grinder before you realize it isn’t plugged in. Also, in stage two of development, the coffee grinder will be fitted with a pressure sensor to record how much harder you jab the button with each subsequent attempt.

I Trust I’m Not the First

MikePerry — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 12:41:19 +0000

Was struck recently by how distinctly different “Big White Cloud” sounds from the rest of J.J. Cale’s work, then a couple weeks in figured out it was John, not J.J.

Yesterday…

MikePerry — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:36:01 +0000

…was a good day. Up at 6 a.m. to write for a while, then chores. Tried to start tractor but it wouldn’t. Got a little cranky. Wiggled things, lifted hood, pulled mouse nest from beneath air cleaner, wiggled more things. Tried battery charger. Nothing. Stared futilely. Decided to call mechanic. Called mother-in-law first (she owns tractor). She said check that you don’t have the emergency brake on or something. Yah, right, I thought. Tried tractor one more time, realized I had PTO engaged, which locks ignition. Got tractor started. Moved both chicken coops. Moved fence. Took a timeout to speak with editor about how, um, new book was coming along. Finished moving chickens. Fed pigs. Took car in for service. Worked on new book for three hours while car being serviced. Home and loaded 1951 International pickup with wheat, moved wheat to granary, gave a couple forkfuls to voracious chickens. Split a pile of wood the size of a smallish igloo. Then kissed wife, daughters, ate homegrown greens and homegrown pork chop. Then back to work on book until late. Sometimes you simply can’t explain your good luck so when you finally shut the chickens in* you stand there and look up at a billion stars and whisper, thanks.

*To be absolutely accurate and in the interest of harmony at home, let it be known that last night my wife shut the chickens in.

Why Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day But May Indeed Fall That Quickly

MikePerry — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:56:55 +0000

Because I burned fifteen minutes fruitlessly searching through nine years of archived emails in search of a friend’s snail mail address before I thought to look in my ADDRESS BOOK, where there it was.

Thanks, and Oops.

MikePerry — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:13:05 +0000

Big thank you to Sheboygan folks…a warm way to wind up the mini-tour. We are very grateful to everyone who joined us. Now we’re back home, and finally, it’s snowing…wait…it’s snowing?!?!?

Lost my laptop power cord somewhere along the line, so I’m posting this while the battery lasts, then it’s gonna be radio silence for a while…

Tractor Oops

MikePerry — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:31:28 +0000

On page 225 of Coop, I refer to my father’s Massey-Ferguson 132. It was actually a 135. I am at a loss to explain this error, as I knew very well it was a 135, and have even referred to it as such in a video I did a long time before I wrote the book.

Anyway. Thanks to Dennis, who noted this.