Yet another hapless victim was snared by one of those fast yet smooth talking English types who seem to fill the American airways during the 'wee hours' of the night - hawking largely unnecessary products to a meaning-starved America while dramatically setting car paint jobs on fire and cleaning away years of built up kitchen grease with just the gentlest of half-hearted swipes. A luckless area rancher, Bubba Festoon, age 42, became easy prey to these modern hucksters after deciding to open one beer too many just as the short in stature, slightly unpolished, machine-gun cadenced salesman from the British Isles came on the air with a glint in his eye and a warehouse full of exotic saltlicks from around the world - saltlicks that every cow in America now views as a bare minimum in accommodation on the modern American ranch. (Oh, have we all become that spoiled?) "My husband did what?!? Oh, just wait until I get my hands on that man!! But what about the kid's braces? (Oh please, don't skimp on those! Good gravy!) And what about my bi-weekly perm? How can we afford them all now?" bellowed Ethel Festoon, age 37, upon finding the largely illegible order confirmation number underneath a bag of decidedly diminished pork rinds (BBQ flavor, of course!) and the war wreckage of beer cans that seemed to stretch out like tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery on the now 'fly-paper sticky' coffee table that was a gift from her mother, of all people! "Oh, like mood music in the mating pens and those pedicure thingies (Hooficures?) for the less-confident heifers to make them feel more alluring to our decidedly worthless and underachieving bulls was not enough - but now this? Has the whole world gone mad?" she screeched, shattering glass several miles away at the Snopes' place. "What ever happened to us just turning the darn cows out in the pasture, watching endless re-runs of Gunsmoke when Oprah is not on and letting nature just take its course? But now those darn cows aren't happy unless they are partaking in kosher salt from Israel, Margarita salt from down Mexico way and even that cod-flavored salt from Nova Scotia or wherever it is that those darn people salt cod! Oh, this has gone too far now! This is the last straw, I say!! If I allow my husband to remain alive, and the issue is very much in doubt at this point, things are going to change around here!" she bellowed, having taken more than a little baby step into the parallel universe of insanity itself."Okay, okay! I had a beer or two, but that had nothing to do with my decision to give our herd a little variety in their otherwise mundane and largely event-less lives!" said the cringing Bubba Festoon while attempting to keep the kitchen table between himself and his highly motivated wife. "It is not like I bought those matching hats that go with each doggone saltlick - like those cute little cow sombreros from Mexico or those adorable yarmulkes from the Holy Land for kosher days! I saved us a fortune, and let me tell you, those cows are going to be darn disappointed when they find out! Every other rancher in the whole dern Palouse ordered those little cow hats - and our herd is going to feel so cheated! Its like buying a kid a bike that doesn't have any tires! We have a sacred responsibility to give our cattle the most meaningful lives we can possibly afford - at least until we quite brusquely load them into cramped cattle trucks and ship them down to that meat processing plant in Oregon! (Oh, and they are told they are going 'economy class' to Cow Disneyland! How cruel is that? Just think of their disappointment!) "My wife was always the excitable type. Believe me, she will forget about this in no time - especially if I offer (once again!) to take her to Dollywood (every rancher's dream vacation!) for that long overdue honeymoon that we never got around to 20+ years ago. Women are suckers for a promise of a delayed honeymoon! It works every time!" he chuckled confidently before being bludgeoned senseless by a woman less than half his size.
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