Ahead of her Canberra Comedy Festival show 'Big Dumb Idiot', Frankie McNair shares the hows of cows

By Frankie McNair

Cows. You love them.

The day you found out they are scientifically proven to have best friends you cried tears of pure joy. You love them.

When you drive by them you whisper “cow” to yourself. Heck, you might even roll down your window and give ‘em a bloody neighbourly “moooo” yourself.

And after you’ve had that sweet sweet rush, that can only come from locking eyes with a cow and screaming “mooo” at 110km/per hour, you roll the windows back up.

It’s quiet now.

You smile to yourself as the memory of that sweet moo cow lingers.

It’s very quiet.

Your smile fades. And you just sit in the quiet.

Then, the question comes. It hits you as suddenly and as forcefully as that basketball that hit you in the titties when you were walking through the quad in year 9. And even though it hurt so bad you threw it back and tried to pretend like you were fine, but when one of the boys asked if you were okay you started tearing up so tried to cover it up by just laughing way too hard, which, judging from his face, was a really weird reaction so then you just sprinted to the library and googled “ball to boobs kill you?” and read a lot of articles with no verified recourses about tissue damage and became convinced that you now had internal bleeding and an infection and were gonna die as a result of your titties actually falling off.

The question hits you like that; out of fucking nowhere.

The question will haunt you for the rest of your days.

…Did I just cat call a cow?

You laugh at the thought. How absurd! You play a podcast, the tonic for your wandering mind. But, for some reason, the sound of three men laughing at their own jokes doesn’t soothe you as it usually does.

Another? No use. The sweet song of two best friends discussing gruesome true crimes in vibrant detail does not relax you as it once did. The question floods back and fills your mind with the amount you always wished you could fill your shower by putting your feet and hands over the plug bit; to the goddamn brim.

…Did I just cat call a cow?

You pull over. You feel sick. Thoughts running through your mind…

“Did I just make a cow feel uncomfortable for my own amusement? For my own pleasure? Did I demand the attention of that cow to boost my own ego?”

You grip the steering wheel. You catch your reflection in the rearview mirror.

“I drink soy,” you whisper pathetically to yourself. You look away and hang your head.

You begin drafting a public apology tweet.

“Moo.”

You look up. There is a cow in front of you crossing the road. You hold her gaze for what seems like an eternity, tears now streaming down your face. You say nothing. You nod. She crosses.

You know what you must do.

You put the phone down. You breathe deep. You begin to drive. You don’t know where you are going, but what you do know is that change is a long, long road.

______________________________________________________________________________

I once made eye contact with a cow. I think about that a lot. It was a nice moment atop the hill of my friend’s property. I was taking in the morning as my headphone fed me Hercules’ “I can go the distance”.

“I can go the distance” I thought, profoundly.

I heard a wire fence rattle to my left. I turned to see her. She was, with little to no regard, walking straight through the fence. She had the hunger and determination of a drunk girl, craving a hot chippie, pounding on the closed doors of Kebaba at 5am.

Nothing. Would. Stop. Her.

Soon, the fence post fell and she clumsily climbed over what was once a barrier. She could not be tamed.

She walked to a patch of grass near me and started eating. She stopped.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

“You are very powerful,” I said.

And then she put her tongue up her nose.