The lighter side of the end of the world as we know it...

Some time ago, a reader sent this to me. I thought it was pretty funny.
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My oldest mama cow is named "Faraday." She’s a gentle old cow, good to her calves, and a regular calf producer.

When they’re not out in the pasture, we keep all the cows in a pen by the barn. It’s just a few old homemade wood fence posts and a couple strands of rusty barbed wire. Not much, but it keeps them in. We call it the Faraday cage.

Our cow/calf operation, though small, provodes a bit of income as well as meat for the home freezer. Since we’re too poor to consider ourselves "ranchers" in the traditional sense, we simply refer to our cow raising as Level 1 Everyday Meat Production (EMP-1).

By constast, my rich neighbor, Mr. Carrington, raises hundreds of cows. He’s got remote electric gate openers in his fancy new pickup so he doesn’t even have to get out to open the gates. Plus all the latest automated feeding equipment and such. He calls his operation a Level 5 Extensive Meat Production (EMP-5) ranch.

A while back, he was almost wiped out by an emergency. Seems that a couple of the town’s juvenile delinquents, otherwise know as the mayor’s boys, went on a joy ride. They hot-wired the city tractor, which was hooked to the big brush hog mower, and took it for a spin one Saturday night. I guess liquor will do that to teenage boys.

They drove the tractor down our road and right over into Mr. Carrington’s ranch. Took out nearly a half mile of his fences. Not that they were after him in particular, these boys are equal opportunity vandals (that’s why I put the pungy stakes and concertina wire around my mailbox).

Carrington’s cows all got out and stampeded into town. Led by his 2000 lb prize bull, they trampled right into our local radio station, smashing the studio and wrecking the broadcast transmitter. Not to mention the mess they left on the sidewalks downtown. It was a genuine disaster! For two Sundays in a row, we had to carry our clean shoes to church and put them on there, rather than risk tracking that stuff into the sanctuary.

The morning after it happened, a semi was rolling through town, hit a huge patch of manure in the intersection, and turned over. A whole truckload of air conditioners spilled out into the street. It was a real mess!

The next day, our newspaper ran a banner headline:

DISASTER STRIKES! MANURE HITS FAN AS LOCAL BROADCASTER KNOCKED OFF AIR BY CARRINGTON EVENT! EXTENSIVE DAMAGE FROM LEVEL 5 EMP!

A smaller sub story read:

Other Resources, Though Limited, Were Protected In Faraday Cage At Okie Compound. No Loss Reported.