Not Your Average Cow Hearse

Before I get started on the telling of one of my most embarrassing moments as a farm wife, I'll completely understand your horror or disbelief at such a dumb stunt. Please believe me, it was totally unintentional. Just like the report that came over the police scanner just minutes ago about a rendering truck driving down the highway, carrying what the dispatcher called "intestines" that were leaking out the back. Eeewwee. I'm sure the driver didn't mean to cause such a grisly spectacle.

Back when I was a stay-at-home mom and a more full-time farm wife, I often used the farm's pick-up trucks to run errands. Like most farm trucks, these were far from being the sleek-looking machines that you see ranchers running around in on Ford commercials. These were genuine farm trucks with the rusty fenders, holes in the floor boards and air-conditioning provided by a simple rolling down of the window - provided the knob was still there.

Feeling a bit stir crazy with three young kids in the house one January afternoon, I hopped in the back of the old red Chevy pick-up truck - the one with no rear-view mirror and the seat stuck in the recline position. Wrestling with the stubborn manual transmission and lack of power steering, I navigated my way to Fleet Farm. Delighted with my luck, I pulled into a parking space near the front of the store and ran inside.

As I was standing in the check-out line nearest the exit, I kept noticing the customers walking into the store, looking back over their shoulders towards the parking lot and pointing. Probably a fender-bender or something, I thought to myself as I paid for my purchase and headed out the door. There, to my horror, was the object of their attention, laying stiff in the bed of the old pick-up truck was the body of a dead heifer that had been brought up from the pasture. In his haste, my husband drove the truck home for lunch with the intention that he would bury the animal right afterward. Unfortunately he forgot to mention this small detail to me. In all honesty, he probably figured anyone with eyes could have seen the 250-pound animal in the back of the truck.

Anyone but me who had crawled into the low-slung front seat of a truck without mirrors. Quickly I jumped into the truck, ground the gears into reverse and prayed all the way home that that darn truck wouldn't stall in a busy intersection. To make matters worse, at that time The Reporter had a feature in the paper called Sound Off, where folks could call in leave comments anonymously (this proved to be amusing at times). You guessed it, a couple of days later there was a comment about the a dumb broad who drove to Fleet Farm toting around a dead animal. And that she even had the audacity to park right up in front in broad daylight!

I still cringe when I think about that. And to this day, whenever I drive a pick-up truck into town I always check to see if the cargo is still kicking.