A Good Year for the Outlaw

Driving to work the other morning on IL 78, minding my own business, cranking up a little Waylon Jennings music, I glanced at a farm to my left. There, in the yard behind the barn, was a nice little herd of cattle. Muddy, as is everything else in this state right now, but they looked content. Then, I noticed a couch sitting on the porch outside the farmhouse. The couch was covered…I kid you not…in a black-and-white cow pattern.

I thought about that for a second. Then, these questions started popping into my head: Do the cows give milk better because of the impending threat of becoming couch upholstrey? Is “upholstrey” somehow related to the word “holstein”? Does “couch” come from “cow”? Do the cows know which cow is covering the couch? Did she protest giving milk one morning and suffer the consequences? And of course, the burning question, can the Twins keep up with the White Sox?

The mind does weird things at 7:30 in the morning on a two-lane Illinois Highway.