A really gross, but funny story

Let me set the scene for you. It’s Saturday morning, 40 degrees and cloudy. I’m wearing my torn coveralls, boots and I hadn’t combed my hair since the night before. I was grumpy, cold and tired. We were branding and castrating 125 ornery calves.

“Hey Sarah,” called my sister-in-law, “come see this, but plug your nose.” Being the curious person I am, I wandered over to where she was sitting on top of a calf.

As I got closer I noticed a baseball size growth on the side of the calf’s mouth. “What the hell is that?!??!” I said.

My father-in-law held the calf down and cut open the growth, the calf bawling and kicking. He proceeded to squeeze the growth until a nasty looking pus/blood mixture came oozing out. My mother-in-law screamed, “hey, does that smell?”

I was thinking, why on God’s green earth would anyone smell this oozy crap coming out this nasty growth? Who cares what it smells like, no one is going to put their nose close enough to that nastiness to smell it.

But sure enough, my father-in-law leaned over from his stance over the calf and smelled it. “Nope, it don’t smell, we’re good.”

I later learned that if it ‘smelled’ it would mean the calf would receive heavy medication. Still, I ain’t smellin’ no calf pus.

I stood there about 5 feet away from this disgusting scene as my father-in-law squeezed the living crap out of this growth. All of a sudden, pus shot out of it like a cannon on the Fourth of July. The pus flew clear across the coral, about 10 feet, and a big wad of it hit me straight in the forehead.

My knees went weak as I wiped that crap off faster than you can say the word pus.

Later, my father-in-law told me I should have wiped it off my forehead and licked it to see if it was the pus or just a raindrop. I about puked.

I looked across the coral and a stream of white pus could be seen on top of wet cow turds and mud. My husband pointed to the stream of pus and said, “let’s not wrestle right there.”

I laughed and five minutes later I was sitting in it holding another calf down.

Later, I remembered my sister-in-laws warning. Next time, I’ll bring a shield.