COLUMN: Cowpocalypse

I've got bad news, people. I'd say "don't have a cow" -- but in this case, it may be too late.

Our reporters are the hardest-working superheroes of our company. At least, I think they are. Honestly, I never see them. They're mostly just blurs running in and out of the office on their way to cover the news. How they could've missed THIS gem of a story is beyond me. It's a good thing they have me around to bat clean-up and do the hard investigating. And by that, I mean sitting around and Googling "weird news."

Dateline: Africa. Multiple East African news sources this week are claiming to have video evidence of a man... turning into a cow. Not kidding. You can look it up.

The fuzzy 30-second clip purports to show a fellow lying on the ground in a state of mid-bovine transformation. He has the head and torso of a man, but the hooves and tail of a cow. And yes, if you were wondering, he's mooing. Well, sort of half-mooing and half-weeping, which seems justifiable given the situation. When you wake up with hooves and a tail, I think it's perfectly acceptable to show a certain degree of (cough) cow-ardice.

I cannot stress enough that these articles are presenting the event as hard news. It's not "Cow Hoax Video Goes Viral" or "Local Man Really Good at Photoshop." It's not even "Man ALLEGEDLY turning into a cow." Rather, on the websites I visited, it's presented as fact, just hanging out alongside other news. Stocks are down, there's a 30% chance of rain this weekend -- oh, and a man turned into a cow. Film at 11, I'd reckon.

But even MORE fascinating is the headline most of these news sites are going with: "Man sleeps with married woman, turns into cow."

So this appears NOT to be a random case of spontaneous bovination. Instead, this is some kind of "real" life morality tail -- err, tale. A guy stepped out with someone else's lady, and woke up a mooing half-cow. I don't remember much from those awkward 8th-grade sex-ed classes, but I'm pretty sure we never touched on THAT particular STD. 

Let's suspend disbelief for a second and assume some poor soul has, in fact, turned into a cow. How does one immediately and knowingly connect this to his purported infidelity? How does "Kevin appears to be turning into a cow" immediately lead one to ponder who Kevin's been shacking up with?

This is, after all, the 2020s -- if this decade had a mascot, it'd be a hot dumpster fire. If I saw someone wake up on the wrong side of biology with sudden hooves and a tail, I don't think I'd immediately assume divine retribution for some sinful transgression. I'd probably just run away screaming, convinced I'd just been exposed to some new horrifying Cow-vid-19 or something.

If a cowpocalypse were to reach our shores, I'm sure we as a people would quickly figure out a way to both politicize and monetize it. In no time, cattle would be stampeding over "Don't Tread On Me" flags, the news channels would be full of people angrily mooing at one another, and someone somewhere would be getting rich off "Make America Beefy Again" hats. Simply on the off-chance this African news story is correct, Elon Musk's probably making plans to purchase Burger King as we speak.

Good thing it appears the cowpocalypse is NOT close at hand. You see, the original video comes with narration at the end. After watching our poor victim sad-moo for a few seconds, a voice comes on that one site thankfully translated:

"This man was bewitched and turned into a cow after sleeping with someone's wife. I feel sorry for this man, but let this serve as a lesson to all men who like to sleep with people's wives. There are a lot of single women out there."

So rest easy, dear reader. There's no virus turning us into cattle (yet). This isn't even a vengeful deity gone a-smiting. No, it's just a simple run-of-the-mill bewitching. The moral of the story seems pretty clear: Fellas, don't sleep with married women. Or, at the very least, you should probably check first and make sure their hubbies aren't warlocks. 

Message received. I'm in no hurry to transform into a cow. While I'm pretty sure I've already made signifigant headway towards growing three stomachs, chewing cud sounds unpleasant. I guess I'll just have to focus my attention on those "lots of single women out there." Ladies...? Umm, hello? Is this thing on?

Eh, forget it. I'm hungry. Anyone know a good burger place?