Happy Buy Nothing Day
Happy Buy Nothing Day, folks!
There’s not anything like a baby goat to get Black Friday started on a good note! After the usual cajoling, arguing, snapping and finally Laying Down of the Law, we had TeenHer dressed (after a fashion-in a Lakers jersey, basketball shorts and a purple bathrobe), fed, and all geared up to help us with the BND Holiday crafting Extravaganza.
And then the phone rang. I didn’t get much back-story because as soon as I heard the words “baby goat” I was out the door in my pajamas. My mom always gets the cool toys! We sped over there in the van, because it was WAY TOO COLD to walk the ¼ mile to my dad’s place, plus you never know what kind of snake/gator/wild dog might be waiting to pounce on the only pedestrians to see the side of P.D. Road in like, 6 months. This is an adorable sweet baby, Internet. I’m not sure what would be cuter than a BABY PYGMY goat, but I invite you to send me pictures of anything you think could compete. Stupidly, I hurried out of the house without the camera today. I pledge to get lots of syrup-sweet baby goat pics online tomorrow.
Delbert was our very first goat, and yes he was named after Delbert McClinton and yes I knew who he was when I was 11. We loved Delbert, but he got to be a stubborn, stinky bastard and my dad and I sold him to some other farmer. We split the 25 dollars-I bought a chair from a flea market with my 12.50, which was the most money I’d ever had at one time. I remember that chair; it was a cube chair. Entire nights were spent curled up in that chair talking on the phone my parents had the dreadfully unfortunate judgment to install in my room.
We got more goats after old Delbert, and soon we had quite a little goat clique out in the pasture. When my brother was a few months old, I was 17 and not living at home. My relationship with my parents was strained, but not so much that they didn’t call me right away when 6 babies were born on the same morning one day in May. I suppose to get really technical about it, six baby goats is pretty off the cute scale and probably does actually beat the baby pygmy goat I cuddled today. That day in May 17 years ago, I was able to watch a couple of those little guys take their very first steps. Baby goats learn to walk when they are like, an hour old. Those little bastards have to know how to run and hide from view under rocks and in holes to avoid getting snatched up by hawks-as much as a mama goat wants to head-butt and bleat dire warnings your way, the mama goat just doesn’t have all that much ammo in the protection department. Milk, she can do. Hiding from Big Scary Birds is up to the baby.
When Toddler A saw that baby goat, she let out a shriek that would have caused the ears of innocent bystanders to bleed had we been indoors. More of a maniacal laugh-scream-squeal than the standard Baby Squeal. She let loose with a string of baby-ese that tumbled out of her mouth as if her brain was going faster than her mouth could form the words. And then she took off after the poor little pygmy baby, whose name is Nelly.
Nelly must have sensed another of Her Kind in the vicinity because she was as friendly at that moment as I’d seen her all day. Babies know babies, no matter what shape, size, or species.
Please, Internet-remind me of this day when I am full up on W04 stickers and Jesus Fish. Remind me that we came here for baby goats and Thanksgiving with friends around us and kids in the yard. We came here so that every day my kid can run to the window and wave bye to her grandfather as he walks out the driveway, and so that one day we’ll fence in our own yard in front of our own house, and have our own little goat city of grass and concrete and truck toppers.
You can keep your public transit and your skyscrapers and your sidewalks and your shopping malls and ethnic food. I have 2 acres of my own and 8 more to play on. My kids have trees to climb and cats to curl up with and butterflies to chase. We have baby goats and my parents. It doesn’t get much better.