Caustic cattle

Every so often my job takes me into the realm of the weird. We’re not talking the tabloid-quality ‘MAN EATS OWN HEAD’ type of strange, but definitely stuff that’s off to the left of the ordinary.

I recently paid a visit to a construction site, where I took a walk around to check progress and examine the quality of work on the roads, which were just about complete. The site is close to the periphery of the city, so there is a certain rural quality to the area. By this, I mean that every so often, you see cows wandering about the place. The bovine beasties don’t appear to be at all cowed by bulldozers and seem to enjoy showing their disdain for the Works of Man by defecating freely and ubiquitously.

During my inspection tour, I encountered evidence that one of the cows had been out on a bender the night before, because the deposit it left on the road lacked the pleasing firmness that you would normally expect. The bizarre thing was that this runny specimen had started to corrode the bitumen surfacing and that, I might add, takes some doing.

So the next time you find yourself groping for a simile for ‘acidic’, you have my assurance that references to ‘cow pie’ are perfectly acceptable (this may also explain why beef gives my father heartburn).