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by Paolo Mirando | 18 Sep 2006, 0:00
Precisely at midnight the judge slings his sledge hammers at the bell—echoes bounce and ring across the empty stock yard floor. Precisely thirteen minutes later the floor is packed with the backs of paired-off men in suits, waltzing.
"Well hey there, Moo-moo. We're absolutely butchering you tomorrow."
For the event tonight everyone calls everyone Moo-moo—a gentlemanly epithet acknowledging the cash cow every one of them is or has under contract.
Chuckling to an eavesdropper, "someone hasn't read the latest release reports...", who turns and says "but I have, Moo-moo, and he's right." The Moo-moo blanches and is suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of a thousand giddy eunuchs celebrating his being out cast among them with bubbles and chiffon.
A man so old he started bringing everyone condoms, cigars and boy scout-style multifunctional cutlery in party bags introducing one just welcomed, as it were, into the herd.
"Well, Tuesday is the day of war, Moo-moo my boy. And what's a little war without a little, heh heh, gentlemanly conduct pre-war, eh?"
"Well, Mr... Mr Moo-moo, but—golly, is that the governor?"
"Spank my eyes with a bull horn if it isn't. But of course tonight you'll address him as convention calls for, Moo-moo."
The Moo-moo nods and wipes his brow with a cut of steak someone handed him at the door.
A brown cow comes trotting through the doors to expound thus: "but of course to the French it's Mars' Day, Mardi—" and is greeted with a meat hook swung up through its lower jaw and out its face just above the snout—its yappy mouth, as it were, hooked shut.
The judge slings another battery of hammers against the bell and all the Moo-moos quit their dancing. They slip off their coats and the more enterprising of them give encouraging taps to others' knees. "They're not just for knocking, heh heh."
Enormous double doors toward the back of the stock yard were starting to be pushed open from behind them and all the Moo-moos started hollering.
When the judge atop the column peeled off his Moo-moo's face, sloughed his robes and fell dignified and naturally to all fours, which were revealed for what they were when the robe was cast—hands curled and hardened to fists, to hooves, long horns sprouted above ears grown triangular and functional for swatting pests—a brown cow in a man disguise.
All the Moo-moos quit their hollering to stare. Some older or sharper of them felt betrayed. Some said something about something being bull honkey. Most just felt indignant.
When the judge atop the column began to cattlecall his face red. A thousand other brown cows lurking outside stampeded into the stock yard floor. And the ballroom of the Moo-moos was instantly debunked to the status of a degenerate orgy, which it might have always been.
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