Carnivorous Cow

The Cow was interested to read that sex workers in Ipswich were being paid to stay home. "They may as well work for local government", muttered Gramsci. "Each time there's a restructuring, the winning party puts in their team of choice, but has to carry on paying the previous team while the lawyers fight about the size of the handshake!"

But it seems that ratepayers weren't funding this one - or not directly. It was voluntary contributions, organised by a charity. Gramsci still didn't see the difference. "Paying rates here is pretty discretionary, too!" he pointed out. The Cow gave up.

"At least they've got a suspect!" she informed Gramsci. "And he's got a MySpace page!" She clicked excitedly to view the profile of Ipswich's most famous underachiever. "Ah. never graduated from his Specialist Sports school... but he did become a team leader at Tesco!"

Gramsci looked horrified. "Imagine team-building exercises!" He shuddered.

The Cow was less concerned with that. "At least he didn't mix business with pleasure," she remarked. "Imagine what might have turned up in the Special Of The Day...."

Gramsci blanched, and quickly distracted himself with the computer. "Look," he pointed out, "the news article says he has eight MySpace friends, but I can see only six here, and one of them - Tom - comes with the package"

The Cow looked up. In the time since his outing, two of his "friends" had already disowned him. She wondered how soon the others would follow.

Gramsci shrugged. "No loss," he ventured. "I'll bet even now a whole bunch of new weirdos are sending through 'friend' requests. Just think - this guy's MySpace page is going to be getting hits like crazy. You make it onto his friends list, you're bound to get some of those going to your page, too."

And, after all, friendship with a serial killer never harmed anyone's online ratings....

 (More)

Mr Timberland was feeling crowded. He longed to escape to a hole, with only three things: a microwave. DSTV. And a cold place for beer.

And a high-speed internet connection, he added on consideration. Ah. Not Cape Town, then... Oh, and a coffee machine.

The Cow rolled her eyes. Scope creep never failed to manifest. If a genie popped out of a bottle, and offered three wishes, almost everyone would want to use one wish to request a whole bunch more wishes.

Of course, genies can be terribly literal, so one would need to specify the beer to go into the cold place, the food - and any tools needed for preparation - to go into the microwave, and the TV on which to view DSTV. As well as, if the additional items were allowed, the computer and modem for the internet, and the coffee beans for the coffee machine.

And, of course, the infrastructural requirements - the electricity, the phone lines or iBurst, the running water... This was going to be quite some hole. The Cow thought perhaps linking up with Osama bin Laden might be the way to go, as at least he had the means to bankroll some home comforts in his cave.

"That won't work!" sneered Gramsci. "He's feeling crowded, remember? Sharing a cave with Osama would require him to spend his days tripping over Al Jazeera journalists, CIA spies, spiritual and military advisors, and Osama's old family friends, the Bushes. That could get seriously crowded!"

The Cow had to concede the point. Fighting teenagers off your stash of beer was no doubt easier than winning an argument with the Taliban over your right to drink it, at all.

Albeit only marginally...

Mr Timberland appeared at the Cow's door. "I've done something really stupid!" he declared, "something so stupid I can't possibly tell you because it will end up in a blog!"

The Cow was intrigued, but Mr Timberland was having none of it. It was, he confessed, so mortifying he hadn't even had the courage to tell his wife. The Cow laughed. "Don't worry about that!" she chuckled, "I'll tell her!" Mr Timberland blanched and recoiled.

The Cow persisted. "You can't tell me that, and then not tell me what happened! It's against the rules!" Mr Timberland shifted nervously. "Perhaps," he muttered, "I'll feel better if I confess."

And so he did.

Such as it was.

It was the most anticlimactic confession the Cow had ever heard. Rather than being monumentally stupid, Mr Timberland had simply done what mere mortals do several times apiece in the course of their mundane lives. He'd shown himself to be human, but no more stupid than that. It was all terribly disappointing.

The Cow stomped back into her office. "Do you think I can sue him for false advertising?" she asked Gramsci.

"I doubt," ventured Gramsci, "or every second male would have garnishee orders on their salary cheques repaying disappointed lovers."

The Cow paused. She felt a whole lot better. A disappointing idiot was far better than a disappointing lover, after all.

The Cow was puzzled. Andrew had declared the optimal age - or was it the outside optimal age? - to be half one's own age, plus seven. Was that bi-directional across gender, she wondered, or was that uni-directional, applying to one gender only?

Men were commonly held to reach their sexual peak at 18. Their optimal partners, thus, would be 16. An 18-year old boy was a bit young for a 16-year old girl, but an 18-year old boy and a 16-year old boy were better placed.

Women reputedly hit their peak in their late 30s. A 38-year old woman, then, should opt for a 26-year old? The Cow struggled to think of a single reason why.

The other way, though, would leave the 38-year old woman with a 62-year old man - which might work, depending on _who_ the 62-year old man was. Mick Jagger at 62 was not the same as Thabo Mbeki at 62 (though admittedly Thabo had a year's headstart on Mick...) but both held considerably more attraction than Jacob Zuma at 62. Or any other age, it must be added.

Still. She didn't much fancy either of the options the formula prescribed for her ideal age of partner. She thought back to a couple of days previously, waiting in the airport for the arrival of the butler, chatting to a friend of hers. As Ali wasn't short-sighted, he had a clearer picture of the disembarking passengers walking to the terminal than she had, and so took to picking them out before they swam into her focus, teasing her with elderly "professorial"-looking specimens tottering around with their Zimmer-frames, before settling on the butler.

"Perfect for you," he'd remarked about the age, and the Cow was inclined to agree. Formulae might be helpful in converting foreign exchange, but in matters of chemistry, some things were best left to fate.