Yesterday I had a full day of calls that were very important to me. Of course, cell service inside my house dropped to zero bars so I had to take my calls outside. Prior to the calls I was directed to make sure there wouldn’t be noise interference and to be in a place where I could focus away from distractions.
I was relieved to see none of my animals were in view of the porch and decided to take my calls there. I neatly placed my notes, pen and morning tea in front of me and dialed into my first call. Everything went well for a couple minutes.
Then, much to my horror, a series of animal events ensued.
While I was trying to sound professional on the phone all four of my adult roosters decided this was an excellent time to belt out the song of their people – repeatedly – 4 feet from me.
I silently mouthed death threats to the naughty boys and attempted to shut down the crowing as I apologized profusely to the call participants.
When I turned to get back to my workspace Rosamond (a young goat) was nosing around my belongings. As I shooed her away she grabbed my notes and took off with them. I was able to snatch my notes back before she consumed them. Then I turned to see Maybelle helping herself to my morning tea. She sipped it dry and stared at me, her lips dripping with my tea.
I calmly escorted the goats off the porch and sat back down on the porch swing. That’s when Rosamond raised the stakes. She must have walked around to the other side of the porch because suddenly she was behind me, mouthing my hair. I ignored her, grateful I could keep my back to her and guard my papers. She then proceeded to rub her face on my arm as if it were her personal scratching post. I shooed her away again and kept talking when suddenly…God, I’m so embarrassed to even write this…there was a loud fart sound right behind me. Rosamond had snorted. If you’ve never heard a goat snort they are always shockingly loud and sound like an enormous poot. I could feel my eyes tear up and bug out from their sockets, my face grew hot. There was zero chance the others on the conference call didn’t hear it. I wanted to drop the phone and run away but it was too late. I scrambled to explain myself. “OMG um, animals make awful noises all the time…I swear I didn’t just poot, my goat snorted!” No doubt I’d made all of us super uncomfortable but they were kind enough to laugh. I envisioned them in their NYC offices listening to a crazy woman on the other end of the line.
UGH!
At this point I decided to extricate myself from the commotion. I made my way to the driveway and hid behind my car to continue the calls out of sight of the animals.
I was finally feeling like I’d regained my footing. That’s when one of my young roosters, Beau Ferguson, crept up behind me. Twelve inches from my phone he let out one hell of a crow aimed directly at me. He put so much effort into it he actually wheezed afterwards. Satisfied with himself, he marched off leaving me to deal with my mini heart attack. Humiliation complete.
I’ll be able to laugh about this one day.