Goat Grief!

I walked onto our back porch, caught a whiff of what surely had to be a molting skunk, and started searching for the offending stink monster.

But something about the smell was strangely familiar, a smell that quite possibly qualified in certain states as a toxic chemical spill under EPA regulations. That was no skunk smell.

That was an odor that came in through your nose but got trapped in your throat, forming a solid lump of stench next to your left tonsil. It was the smell of musk, rut, and lust. It was the smell of the goat next door, a Nubian buck goat with a head like a cinder block and a "come hither" look in his eye, and it was rank.

I could hardly complain, however, because I enjoy comic relief the way some people enjoy the smell of an aftershave called, "Sex Panther." The goat fell in love with a donkey. The donkey objected violently to the prospect of being the object of buck lov'en. Mr. Medina, my neighbor, objected to the donkey trying to bite the head off of the goat. Mr. Medina chased the goat, who chased the donkey, who ran for its sexual purity.

I laughed. Then I coughed. Then I choked. Because there is nothing in this world, like the smell of a big goat in big love.

Linda (Hold Your Breath) Zern