Day 12, Project @#!^!: Follow The Good Intentions

Last week -- last Thursday -- the reason I couldn’t do anything around here or write about it was that I had promised to milk the goats. Remember? The baby goats? Well, the baby goats are weaned now and that means their mamas need a-milkin’. Papa goat-owner is away for a while (down the Cape with Johnny, as a matter of fact), and the person he got to milk them for him couldn’t make it that one day, so I volunteered. I’d milked a goat before: why not help a brother out? (And if that sentence has ever been uttered before, I’ll chew on a tin can.)

Except, it might be a stretch to say I’ve milked a goat before. Not dry, by any means. Certainly not by myself. And not for like twenty -- okay, more like thirty -- freakin’ years. But I'd done it, in the sense that I had once, long ago, made milk come out of a goat, and that’s got to count for something. Even if now I’m thinking that it might have been a cow…

Well, I got milk to come out of the goat just fine. I just didn’t get much of it to go into the bucket. Actually, that isn’t fair. It went into the bucket. Mostly. It just didn’t stay there. I don’t know what happened. Mama goat jumped up on the milking thing no problem, but right about there is where things started going wrong.

Mama goat said “Hey, get your hands off me there!” and aimed a good sharp kick. I caught the bucket as it bounced off my chest and decided the best way to go about this would be to hold on to her foot with one hand while I milked her with the other. This, unfortunately, left the bucket and all three babies to run the fly route on me.

Baby goat #1 said “Hey, what’re you doing up there, Mama? Can I come up there, Mama? Wow, it’s high up here, Mama!” And Mama said “Get down, baby goat!” And kicked him. Whoops, there went the bucket off the milking stand.

Baby goat #2 said “Hey, what’s in that bucket? Can I have some? Whoops! Snarf! Cough! I can’t drink out of a bucket yet. Help, I’m drowning! Phew, that was a close one. Bye!” And took the bucket with him when he jumped to dry land.

Baby goat #3 said “Hey, Mama! You still got milk in those things? I didn’t know you still got milk in those things! Can I have some? Can I? Huh?” “NO!” Mama goat said, and knocked the baby -- ass over milk-bucket, as it were -- straight off the milking stand.

And on like this for two mama-goats’ worth until they both were dry. I got the milk out of the goats all right -- and I know that’s the important thing -- but when I was done even the two ounces I had managed to save in the bottom of the bucket were so foul with goat hair and goat feet and goat shit that I gave up and fed it to the dog. Drove all the way home smelling like goat cheese, too.

So why am I telling you all this, when I’m supposed to be reporting back on my latest Manifestly Puritan achievement?

Because I’m not going to say today what I plan to do tomorrow, anymore. Every time I do, my g-d bucket winds up getting kicked all up and down the yard…

It’s not raining today, in case you were wondering. It’s beautiful, lovely, 75 degrees. But this morning, when Johnny was setting out to bleach that g-d door, I told him not to do it because the weatherman said it was gonna rain. So I had to hit the 5F5 again this afternoon. Except then my train was late going into and coming home from work (“switch problems” and “police action,” respectively), and when I finally made it back to the car at the end of the day I got stuck in traffic. Because June 4 to July 4 is the optimal time to re-pave Quincy Shore Drive -- you know, Quincy Shore Drive? Where the frigging beach is?

So today Prudence Puritan got home from work, opened the coffee can she’d stored the hinges in, poured a bunch of 5F5 over the lot and put the lid back on. There. That’s her manifesto for today. First thing tomorrow she promises to--

No.

Tomorrow she promises to wake up. That’s all. Anything that happens after that is gravy.

(Shit. You think I shouldn’t have said that? Have I jinxed the waking-up part, now? Oh, well...)

Day 12: Screw it.
Time: An endless song.
Cost: Not less than everything.
Bananas: Priceless