Today the Universe wants me to think about cows

A RURAL FRIEND WAS worried that his hens might come down with bird flu in this rainy, humid weather.I was about to say: “Give them chicken soup,” but then I thought, maybe not. Insensitive?

***

Everyone’s health-aware these days. Last weekend, a colleague lifted his tee-shirt to show off his six-pack of abs. I told him that I only had one ab but it was a BIGGIE. Does that count?

***

But to be honest, it’s hard for us “weird news” columnists to be fighting fit as our main job requires us to sit patiently until someone else does our work for us.

I watch that email inbox LIKE A HAWK. It's exhausting. But readers always come up trumps.

Case in point: On the day of writing this, a reader reported that a cow had been accepted for a polytechnic entrance exam in India.

The cow filled in an application giving its name as Kachir Gaw (Brown Cow in Kashmiri), its father’s name as Gur Dand (which means Bull), and added a mugshot of its brown, floppy-eared bovine face.

The cow was accepted, and an admission card bearing its picture and name was issued—and soon went viral.

The reader who forwarded it said: “Either they made the card without reading the application or they thought the cow would make a pretty good medical student.”

***

Cows ARE associated with healing in India.

In fact, I can just see the movie now. Given the respectful attitude to cows in India, a Bollywood special (“Doctor Moo”?) could be a cash cow for the industry. (Sorry!)

***

Later that day, the Universe arranged for another email to arrive ALSO about the unlikely topic of cow identity crises. (Okay, non-believers, what are the odds of that?)

A US farmer felt his herd of cows didn’t look quite right, so he examined them close up and was aghast to find that it was a group of COW IMPOSTERS pretending to be his.

He told North Carolina police he knew what his own cows looked like, and I was thinking how sweet, he thinks of them as his children.

But later in the article his thinking is explained: he is upset because when they are slashed into steaks, his cows could be sold as “Angus beef” which are WAY more profitable than the bovine imposters.

So now the police have to find his beasts. Watch out for “Have you seen this cow?” posters appearing around the world.

Could one of them could have made it to India to apply to medical school, one wonders?

***

Before day’s end, a THIRD cow-related item arrived on my desk. (The Universe loves me!)

Fishermen who went out from the coast of Darwin, Australia, a few days ago to net queenfish ended up catching a live cow.

They towed her two kilometers back to shore.

News reports said the cow had fallen into the sea while being loaded onto a cattle ship.

But you and I know that this is probably another US escapee from the Angus steaks farm.

***

Anyway, a colleague said that the cow movie we are planning should include bulls doing a hiphop jive.

“You could call the dance ‘beef jerky’,” she said.

That’s a bit of a groaner, but quite clever.

***

But I did smile when she started singing a song for the movie’s male lead:

“Something in the way she moos attracts me like no udder lover.”