Listen to this articleThe road to an Easter Basket is fraught with danger and excitement. It was Easter weekend and there were endless scenes of cute little children hunting for Easter eggs and chasing baby sheep in a grassy meadow with flowers blooming all over the place, trying to sell laundry detergent. In our culture, sheep are given a pure and delightsome image and are made out to be idyllic innocent, godly creatures.
I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. When I was a little princess, during the Cretaceous Period, growing up on a farm in Idaho, (yes, I am an Ida-Homo) we had 5,000 sheep on our family farm. Sheep are not innocent. Sheep are not godly. Sheep are the most sinister, foul, obnoxious, disgusting creatures placed on this planet. And the stench. Ooohhhhh the stench!
Sheep are referenced many times in the Bible. Last week the sermon in church was about when Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” All I could think about is how the sheep would almost trample me when I was trying to feed them. They would crowd around me so tight that I could not move, and therefore could not deliver the hay to the feeder. I would try and prod them with the handle of the pitch fork trying to clear the way but to no avail. In desperation, I would turn the pitch fork around and poke them in the rear with the sharp tines. That did get some results, however, the startled sheep would then try to move too fast and their hooves would spin out on the concrete kicking sheep shit up onto my face and mouth. During dry weather, the manure would be all powdery and stick to my sweaty face like rouge. During wet weather, the doo doo would be liquid and would run down my cheeks like Tammy Faye’s mascara. Sadly, I have accurate firsthand knowledge of what sheep shit tastes like.
The repulsive animals would always be discovering different ways to escape from their corrals. My father was bishop of the ward, so consequently, he had to go to early meetings on Sunday mornings and the feeding of the loathsome creatures was left to me. One Sunday I had just finished feeding the abhorrent beasts and as I came in from the corral, the rest of the family had just left to go to the church. I quickly took a bath to remove the stench, then I was supposed to go to the church in time for priesthood meeting. Just as I was getting out of the bathtub, I glanced out of the window. I saw a most horrendous sight. The sheep had escaped from the corral and were all around the house, eating the lawn. I cracked open the back door and sure enough, the house was completely surrounded by the woolly quadrupeds.
Quickly, I threw on a pair of running shorts and a pair of hip-wader boots that were lying by the back door, and ran out of the house trying to scare the sheep back to the coral. Stupid me, all I managed to do was to panic the herd and they began to run around the house the south side of the house. Now let me tell you, there is one unbending truth about sheep. Sheep follow each other. As the beginning of the herd fully rounded the house, they came upon the rear of the herd as they were disappearing around the corner of the house and the front of the herd began to follow the rear of the herd in a never ending stampede of wool.
I knew that I needed to stop the stampeding hoard, or in their panic they would run themselves to death. So, despite being nearly naked, I ran out into the middle of the pandemonium waving my arms and yelling. Well, a certain buck would have nothing of it and he jumped hitting me full in the chest, knocking me to the ground. SHEEP FOLLOW EACH OTHER! The rest of the 5,000 proceeded to run over the top of me with their sharp hooves. I quickly realized that I was going to die if I couldn’t get out of the stampede. So I made it up onto my hands and knees and began to crawl. I finally made it to the edge. My nearly naked body was covered in fresh sheep shit, bloodied and bruised except where the hip waders had protected my legs.
I needed something big to stop the flowing herd. I hopped into my car, Queertanic, a 1962 Buick LaSabre, for which I had traded a pig to my grandma. Luckily the keys were in the ignition. I slowly drove my beloved Queertanic directly into the stampeding throng. Sheep began hitting, head-on into the side of the car. Six of the unfortunate critters broke their necks against the car, leaving several small dents in the metal. Finally with the mass of Queertanic in the way, the stampede ended. Then I went and got the goat on a leash and led the sheep back into the coral. Thankfully this time, the sheep still followed each other. The lawn was now non-existent. I never made it to church and we had dutch oven lamb chops for Family Home Evening the next night.
This story leaves us with several important questions:
- Was removing sheep shit from my face good training for removing glitter?
- When they reference sheep in church, should I stand up shouting the pungent truth?
- Should I develop a line of hip-wader high heels to protect drag queen’s legs?
- Should I bedazzle some hip-wader boots for my next bingo?
- Was the buck that knocked me down trying to mate with me in my nakedness?
- Are lamb chops killed in the line of duty less fattening?
These and other eternal questions shall be answered in future chapters of the Perils of Petunia Pap Smear.
