Udder-ly Embarassing

Have you ever had a day that was so embarassing it sticks with you even now? In this short story, Allison's day starts out normal enough. In the end, sometimes 'not knowing' is the best thing you can ask for.

“Um, Allison, did you happen to notice anything, well, unusual about your car?” Ryan, her husband, called out. Something about the way he said the word unusual let her know something was completely amiss.

That Thursday had started off innocently enough. But perhaps if Allison had known how her day was going to transpire, she would have elected to simply stay in bed.

She had an important meeting with investors for lunch, so she had chosen her outfit and accessories with careful consideration. The chosen power ensemble echoed professional chic. Coffee cup in hand, she was out the door ten minutes earlier than usual, ready to seize the day.

Traffic snarled on the interstate, a complete blockade of cars going absolutely nowhere. Luckily, she was in the right-hand lane and only one mile from the next exit where she could take a detour. She heard an odd sound and turned down the high energy music radiating from her speakers.

Was that a moo? she wondered. She must be hearing things. It couldn’t possibly be a— and then she saw it. An honest-to-god cow meandered past her car, eventually coming to a stop beside the emergency lane to take a bite at a clump of grass. A cow! On the interstate in morning rush hour. What in the world?

Then another cow walked by, and another. In some kind of bizarre cow parade. She scanned the radio stations searching frantically for a traffic update. Finally finding one in progress, reporters laughingly announced that heifers had escaped from a transport trailer and were ‘moo-ving’ across five lanes of traffic. Allison was not amused, and even less so when one of the escapees made eye contact with her and started trotting over to her car.

Unprepared for a cow attack on the northbound expressway, Allison knocked over her coffee in the cup holder. The cow came to a complete stop at her passenger side door, looked her in the eye, and slowly licked the window in one long glide from the bottom to the top. Thoroughly amused in her bovine prank, the heifer nonchalantly turned around and sashayed away.

Pranked by a freakin’ cow! Seriously! On today of all days! Urgently she opened the glove box and retrieved a fistful of napkins to soak up the coffee dripping all over the console, seat, and floor.

Eventually, she made it to work. A bit more disheveled than usual, and she was a bit too perturbed to discuss the cow incident with anyone. The napkin-coffee disaster had been left as-is in her car. She didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with that now.

Time got away from her, and soon it was time for her to meet the investors for lunch. She pulled up to the restaurant, and luckily found a spot near the entrance. The investors had already arrived and were gathered not too far from her car.

As she got out, she noticed that they looked at her quizzically. As she extended her hand in greeting, they kept looking beyond her in the general direction of her car. They didn’t say anything specifically, but then she remembered the cow lick. Her passenger window was disgusting, but she was not going to let that heifer continue to ruin her day. Surely a dirty window wasn’t such a big deal. Why are they acting so weird? Allison acted as if nothing was amiss, and together they proceeded into the restaurant for discussion and sustenance.

Truth be told, the meeting went well. But Allison was never more grateful to be home that afternoon. Which is why when she heard Ryan asking if she noticed anything unusual about her car, she sighed.

“Yes, I know. There’s a huge smear on the passenger side window. One of those freaking cows that escaped on the interstate decided it’d be funny to scare me half to death by running towards the car. Only to then slowly lick the window in utter defiance,” Allison explained.

“Utter defiance? Or do you mean udder defiance?” Ryan quipped.

“I am so not in the mood right now.”

“Well, it wasn’t the window I was referring to, dear.”

“What is it then?” Allison asked.

“Come over here and look at the front of your car,” Ryan replied.

“Oh dear God,” Allison managed to stammer out.

“You seriously didn’t see that? Or hear it? Or anything?” Ryan asked as he started snickering.

“This is not funny!” There was definitely something unusual about her car, alright. On the front grill, displayed for all to see, except apparently for her. A large bird, not a small bird, had flown into the grill of her car, wings outstretched as wide as possible, no less.

Allison’s mouth opened wide and then shut again. Her hand rose to her forehead processing the fact that there was an enormous (and dead) bird emblazoned across the expanse of the front of her car.

“Any idea how long it’s been there?” Ryan asked.

“No, I mean I know it wasn’t there when I left this morning. Oh no. OH NO! This must have been why the investors looked at me so crazy when I pulled up!” The horror of the realization manifested as her face and neck turned beet red and her palms began to sweat. She covered her face in her hands and tried to process the very belated embarrassment of it all.

“I doubt they saw it; I mean I don’t think they went looking for your car in the lot.”

“You don’t understand. I got a space in the very front and they were waiting outside. They 100% saw it, and I acted like nothing was wrong. This is so humiliating!!”

“Well, maybe it was better that you didn’t know and acted like nothing was wrong. I mean what were you going to do—march into the restaurant and demand a broom? And then spend a couple minutes whacking a dead bird off your car for everyone to see, in front of a crowded venue at lunch? And then what? Would you have left the carcass outside? Or carried it into the lobby to be disposed of?”

“You are so right. That would have been so much worse. I cannot even imagine if I had turned around and saw it then. Maybe sometimes not knowing is actually better,” Allison said. “I really could just about die right now.”

“You gotta admit, it IS pretty funny,” Ryan said. A laugh escaped, and he attempted to stifle the next one. Which came out as a poorly disguised grunt.

Allison gave him a look. THE look. But then she glanced at her poor car and the pitiful bird. “You know, I can empathize with that bird. I feel like I got smacked in the face by life today.” And then she saw the humor of it all. She started laughing, cackling, and then crying because of the laughter. “Oh, I need some pajamas and a glass of wine to drown out this day. I don’t want to think about tomorrow.”

“I’ll take care of this, go ahead on back inside. And just ignore the large box on the floor that says flat screen TV.”

Allison turned her head to look at him and cocked an eyebrow.

“Hey, you said it yourself, maybe sometimes not knowing is actually better.” Ryan said.

She pursed her lips which melted into a grin, nodded her head and said, “Ok, I’mma go with that. Meet me in fifteen minutes so we can toast to ‘not knowing’.”