The Goat

Often I hear grown adults complaining about their childhood and blaming their character flaws on their parents. Well, I’ve got a story that beats all.

Long ago, a farmer from Pennsylvania planned to bring some barnyard animals to the Staten Island Mall and open a petting zoo in the parking lot.  When my mother read about this, she was so excited that she slapped the newspaper.

“To this we go!”

She believed that every child should milk a cow.  Who knows why, but in her mind, milking a cow was more educational than an elite prep school, so she cut the notice from the newspaper and taped it to the refrigerator.  She told my dad to save the date, but when we arrived at the petting zoo, no cows could be found.

“Can we go now?” my father droned.

My mom scowled at him. She swallowed her disappointment, then forced a smile while taking me by the hand, and led me toward a goat.

“I’ve-a-got-a-something special for you little boy.  You wonder ever how we get-a milk in refrigerator.  Well I–a show you how.”

She was a big Italian lady.  She had trouble squatting or bending but she reached under the goat for the udder, grabbed the teat, and began pulling. Nothing came out, so she adjusted her grip, and she was still pulling when the farmer ran over, aghast and glaring.

“Lady, what are you doing with that billy goat?  God forbid, we have children here!”

“Billy goat?”

Apparently she had mistaken the large scrotum of this animal for an udder.

All day my father had been grumpy, but now he turned red and staggered sideways with silent laughter. He held his sides and winced, and I wondered if he was having a heart attack, because silently he sat on the ground and leaned back against a hay bail.  My mother tried to move away from the goat, but the goat followed and affectionately rubbed its head against her leg.

Over the years, I came to an understanding of what happened, and now this story is the one I tell whenever I do something stupid or whenever someone asks: “what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Don’t blame me,” I say. “When I was a little boy I watched my mother have finger sex with a goat––in public!”

That never fails to win sympathy.