Eight maids a'milking.

Good sweet hay-scented baby Jesus, how does one move forward from here?

Long ago, in a fertile, silo-studded valley that was perpetually fragrant (not unpleasantly so, mind you) with the dung of hardworking domesticated beasts of the earth, a cripplingly naive youth in improbably inappropriate clothing learned exactly how the white substance that one dumped out of a carton onto a morning bowl of Pectin-Bearing Arboreal Treet Rings came into existence.

Now, of course I knew that milk came from cows; I wasn't raised on some forsaken coral atoll in the Pacific somewhere. However, when one approached the subject of exactly how the milk sprang forth from the ungulate and found itself deposited into the merry little pail that the Happy Farmer Man carried about, the books I had as a child were strangely mum. (This has definitely changed, let me tell you). For all I knew, the milk was secreted from the cow's sweat glands, or was vomited into the bucket with mild finger-down-the-throat coercion. Needless to say, as a child who loathed milk intensely, I wasn't altogether eager to piece together how this process played out and I turned my attention to other matters, like how one can catch things on fire, like innocent insects in the vicinity, if one has a magnifying glass and some nice direct sunlight. The fact that cows had violently pink, swollen teats hanging from their undersides similarly did not make a connection, either, even when seen with a calf asuck upon them. (I just made that word up, but I enjoy it. Asuck. Huh. Awesome.)

I went at a tender age a few times to visit with my uncle, a small and large animal veterinarian who served the entirety of this sweet dung-fragranced valley, and, when his schedule and my tender sleep cycle permitted, I would ask to go on "ride-alongs" as he went on call to serve the livestock on many area farms.

It goes without saying that I learned an intense amount of crap about life, about death, and about the ghastly, oozing things that animals can produce upon their bodies. In short order I'd seen bovine twisted stomach surgery, a live calf-birth, administration of bovine birth control, the slick-glove-up-that-place test for bovine fetus development, and a good, old-fashioned digging-the-shet-out-of-an-impacted-hoof session. I saw a goat get induced to vomit after eating several nightshade plants and got to witness how steers get de-horned. However, what nasted me out the worst was the ultimate discovery of how milk was taken from a cow.

So, we arrive at a lovely family dairy and I, knowing full well that I'd soon be encountering massive amounts of freshly-extruded shet everywhere EVERYWHERE OH DEAR GOD EVERYWHERE, I maneuvered myself to be near the cow's heads. This is because - and I have no idea why - cows immediately evacuate bladder AND colon upon smelling/seeing/hearing my uncle, the vet, as he enters the barn. A small barn-child, oddly barefoot, notices me and asks me if I want to see the cows get milked. Since my options were, at that point, go with this strange barefoot waif or linger long enough in my uncle's nearness to get asked to hold a cow's tail away from its taint so that he could thrust his whole arm up in that shet, I decided to follow.

At this point, the previous cow was being led out of her containment and was lumbering toward the freedom of the outdoors and a new cow was being led into the restraints. As she was secured, a strange, octopus-like device with tubes was produced and, to my unblinking horror, was attached to each of her four teats.

Well, as I mentioned before, I wasn't wholly aware that they were teats. In fact, I was fairly certain that they were very small, yet potentially functional, penii.

I can fairly hear the sound of Diet Caffeine Free Coke atomizing in your throat as it is expelled through your sinuses and into your nasal cavity. Yes. Make your fun. The sad little town-kid thought that cow's udders were where their four tiny penises (penii henceforth) held delicate court. Sad, isn't it, that he didn't even know that cows were always female? Yes, this was the same kid who could name the genus and species of several dozen dinosaurs, and yet was poleaxed in horror at the sight of the savage fellatio he'd assumed was part of the milking process. Feck you all: I was seven, and I have unhealthy genetic material.

I watched, agog, as the machine began to withdraw milk/'sperm' from four tiny penii, and I turned to the mutated child near me to ask if it hurt them. He said that he didn't think so, but that they were usually pretty glad to get out of there when they were done. I bet they are, I thought, as whiteness swirled down into the tank nearby.

I spent the better part of the night lying awake following a particularly vivid dream wherein I was sucked dry by a milker that had been attached to my eyes and face.

It was only later that week that I was able to see a young Amish woman milking a cow, stool and bucket, and ask her about what it all meant. Through her slight Pennsylvania Dutch accent, she explained that yes, cows were girls and yes, the milk that came from them was channeled through nipples, like the ones I and she had, except, uh, cows have four of them. A nearby cat that was laying in the sun showed me that some animals have six of these things.

Then, she turned one of the teats toward my face.

And pulled.

Warm, unpasteurized milk sprayed in my face, and I swooned and nearly fainted in abject horror. She thought this was funny and demonstrated it on herself, but this time the milk ended up neatly squirting into her maw. The part of me that could not imagine milk being warm (outside of a kitchen) immediately knew, deep within, that I'd been ejaculated upon, despite recent evidence to the contrary.

Haha hell, Amish tart: you'd later become one of my roots, and methinks that the lifestyle that ensued would be abomination to you and your people.

And so, on this, the eighth day of Christmas, I'm reminded of how what can only be labeled profoundly retarded naivite coupled with a savage attack from a woman who lived as though it were 1750 caused me to believe fervently that a female bovine had released unspeakable jizz upon my seven-year-old face.

I shet you not.

Until later, I remain,

Domonic (traumatizedforyearsyetvindicatedeventually) Potorti