Face the Music, Melody

1

An unfamiliar noise sounded behind me, and so I groaned once more, thrusting my hand out towards what I assumed was yet another alarm on my phone. I was constantly changing the tone, so that I actually woke up to a noise, so that maybe one day I wouldn't be late to work a the Chicago Diner I'd scored a part-time job at when I was fifteen with big dreams for traveling the world, which was going to take every penny I'd earned over the years. I was a very deep sleeper, and today was no exception, although I'd never heard quite a sound as this one. Maybe I'd be able keep this alarm for awhile.

What my hand makes contact with, however, is certainly not my old, cheap flip-phone which had taken an easy six months savings to buy off eBay and maintain ever since. Instead, it's a very appetizing of something very squishy and therefor distinctive smelly brown stuff.

Needless to say, I sit bolt upright, awoken immediately by the funky smell I now recognized as lots and lots of very stinky decomposing cow dung. I suppose I'm now nixing the idea of keeping the very useful alarm that had awoken me today, because I wasn't going to steal a cow. Unless I had to, of course. Actually- I'm partially reconsidering now, having a cow would be pretty darn fabulous. If I didn't have to feed it, care for it, find a place to keep it, and most certainly pick up it's poo.

Picking up cow poop daily would be crap. Literally.

There was only one other thing I knew was literal at the moment: that I had no idea where on God's good Earth I was, and my only hint was one I didn't want: a tiny scrap of paper I recognized as a ticket. Since I recognized absolutely nothing around me and couldn't see any buildings for miles, and certainly not the skyscrapers of my home city, I was going to have to guess I didn't stop by some small-time concert in downtown Chicago and end up wasted in a field by myself. Besides, I don't think many hard working cow farmers made their livings directly outside of a big city. That would kind of defeat the whole 'out-west all alone with miles to roam' vibe pastures like the one I was stranded in typically held.

Hesitantly, I reach forward and examine the object of my possession that frightens me so greatly carefully.

Idaho Falls Regional Airport is all I bother to read before deciding to be officially and completely panicked. Well, crap. Again. As I go to shove my used airline ticket into the back pocket of my boot-cut jeans, I glance at it once more and notice three numbers to make me even more frightened of my drunk self: 6-5-0.

How many paychecks was $650? Thirteen weeks worth of pay? How was I ever going to make back that money? How on Earth was I going to make back $650 in Idaho? I was totally screwed. Unless I wanted to sign up for some potato picking regimen classes and then quest for a job full of hard labor in the fields, that is.

So I did what most people did when they were totally screwed. I patted a cow's back and avoided its swinging tail as I contemplated how I would spend my condemnation after taking stock of my surroundings: I had at least $650 missing from the wallet in my pocket, no phone, an empty bottle of booze that I couldn't remember drinking, my half-packed suitcase which I'd had handy since my first eviction notice a few months back, and miraculously, my favorite cello.

I needed a plan. So, plan I did.

I was totally going to have to steal a cow. Or maybe two cows, you know, one for riding and one for carrying possessions. I had no idea where town was- or even if there was a town, however- so I'd have a hard time getting there even with my two lumbering trusty steeds. I mean, cows are like, less dignified, less fast, less cool, less pretty horses, right?

Another loud sound came from behind me, interrupting my brilliant schemes. This time, I recognize the noise as a cow's "moo"ing, and am surprised to say that it actually sounds kind of like the word. I mean, I'd known what a cow looked like from coloring books in the kids section of the animal tent at the Illinois State Fair, which had always been relatively empty seeing as most people didn't like their kids asking questions about all the exhibits that had references to H. H. Holmes and how he'd been one of the greatest serial killers in history and how Chicago's State Fair had been his killing grounds. I guess when you've got a group of orphans that everyone assumes is terrifyingly creepy demonic spawn that was born from Satan which was why they didn't have parents, donating us yearly tickets to the fair was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I'd just never actually heard a cow make sounds before.