Lee Pitts: Trick questions
On the front page of our local weekly newspaper there was a photo of a cute little 4-H girl showing what was obviously a goat at a livestock show. The caption under the photo read, “Here is so and so and her SHEEP!”
It’s bad enough that a journalist doesn’t know a lamb from a goat but recently a friend of mine asked me, “How many cows are there in the average feedlot?”
“None,” I said. “They aren’t cows, they are steers and heifers.” He looked at me like I was the idiot. Another urban friend argued with me and insisted that “mutton” comes from old roosters that can no longer lay eggs.
How did we get so stupid?
I’d be willing to bet that 95 percent of the urban population couldn’t tell you the difference between a Hereford and a heifer. They think Dutch Belted is a wrestler and Porterhouse is a rapping D.J. Kids today are taking French, calculus and other subjects they’ll never use in life at the same time they are taking NO classes that might teach them anything about what they eat. And a very high percentage of people do eat!
This is just wrong. I think every student to graduate from high school ought to have to take and pass a test like the this one I came up with.
#1 If you bred a Blonde de Aquitane female with a Tamworth boar you’d have a) a litter of dumb blondes, b) a hog with lofty intentions, c) a miracle.
#2 What is longer, a) the shelf life of Spam, b) the gestation period of a Jersey, c) the lifetime of a Southdown, d) the line to the restroom at a bad sushi joint.
#3 If you put a mature bull in with some heifers for two years and never got a calf it’s probably because a) the bull was a steer, b) the heifers were spayed, c) the bull was gay.
#4 If you walked behind a Jack and jabbed it in the rump with a sharp stick you, a) are dumber than a box of rocks, b) now have two imprints on your chest in the shape of horseshoes, c) are lucky to still be alive.
#5 You reach up to milk a Guernsey and instead of finding a bag with four finger like projectiles you find a sack hanging down with two tangerine sized thingies in it. Should you, a) go ahead and try to milk the “cow” by pulling on the sack real hard, b) go ahead and hook it up to a milking machine, c) run for your life and climb very rapidly the first good sized tree you come to.
#6 Jennets, Jennys and Vladimer Putin are members of the, a) Corleone family b) Kardashian family c) Osmond family d) ass family.
#7 If you put a Brown Swiss, Suffolk, Poland China, Frenchman, and Santa Gertrudis all in one pen for one month you’d end up with, a) one dead sheep b) a hog with a new craving for milk c) a better smelling Frenchman, d) a Swiss Santa.
#8 Which of the following would you expect to find to find in a fast food burger? a) Aussie cow b) horsemeat c) Holsteins d) kangaroo e) depends on which fast food joint.
#9 Tail biting, cribbing, and cannibalism are often found in, a) animals kept in close confinement, b) the U.S. Congress.
#10 Essay question: What are the other three quarters of a Quarter Horse?
If any student fails to pass this test they have to go stand in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles for six weeks and retake this test, or one like it, until they can pass it. Anyone scoring less than 60 percent after a dozen attempts would henceforth be forced to live on a diet of vegetarian lasagna, eggplant tacos, and tofu waffles the rest of their pitiful life as they clearly do not deserve, or possess the intelligence, to eat real food.