Coried Goat

By Giggles Anderson

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up.

Looking back, I was right to want adulthood. My life as a child sucked. Try as I might, and I even sat through a few sessions of regression therapy, I don't remember ever asking to be here. Seriously, I would have preferred hanging out on a fluffy cloud, stumming a harp, and drinking peppermint ambrosia.

Michael Moore made a great argument for universal health care and I want Bill Gates to bring back Windows 95. As far as I can tell, neither wish will be granted in this lifetime.

Tell me why I am here again?

Okay, okay. My childlife didn't suck all the time. A couple of cool things happened. I learned to run and hide for one. Two, I stopped lying and thieving long enough to engineer the acquisition of my driver’s license. High school graduation was the third…the coup de grace.

There is one major highlight that I choose to remember.

There was that time my Dad brought a goat home and put him in our backyard. He kept calling the goat Corey. I would often rush home from elementary school to feed the goat vegetable scraps.

I really loved Corey.

I would sit about three feet from him and he’d watch me do my homework. I asked him if he thought that Katie could spell better than I. He said, “Naaah.” She couldn’t. I asked if he thought the boys could beat me at chess. He said, “Naaah.” It was if he was the only person in the world who truly understood who I was.

As with many of my subsequent relationships, the romance was short-lived. About three weeks later, the love of my life was killed and skinned behind my back. Then he was seasoned, cooked, and ladled onto a bed of white rice.

I sat crying into an obnoxious salad as the rest of my family mocked my misplaced affections and ate Coried Goat.

Way to go, Dad.

I promise you that many a boyfriend was treated the exact same way over the years.

And the parentpeople wonder why I haven’t settled down and spawned childfolk of my own.

My mother always said I’d end up alone due to my ungrateful attitude. And like most mothers, she constantly reminded my childself that I had many problems that she would have to eradicate before I would be worthy of wifehood or fiefhood.

I forget which.

[Author’s note: *Shrug.* I was young and I didn’t like listening to her then. Matter of fact, I don’t like listening to her now, but that’s something I discuss at the tune of $150 an hour with my lawyer. He doesn’t understand why I insist on suing her for punitive damages, but he is amazing to look at so I consider each visit money well spent.]

Of all my Mother's children, I was the lazy one. I was the one who complained when I was asked to clean the baseboards. I was the one who complained when I was asked to pick up the backyard leaves by hand. I was the one who dared to complain despite the fact that I didn’t have a job or enough Gary Coleman talent to support the family.

Child please.

The parental units were the lazy ones.

If they worked harder, we could’ve gotten that nice maid I picked out for them. She cleaned our church and for a mere thirty bucks a week, she would’ve had the cleanest baseboards and grass on the block. Further, I could’ve nailed the part of Arnolda Jackson if they would’ve bothered to fly me out to the auditions.

And in case you’re wondering, I did grow out of my alleged laziness. I now have my own maid.

He is neat in an “obsessive-compulsive, needs to control all the dust in the Universe” kind of way. I pay him in hugs.

And like Corey, he too may move on once he figures out I don’t plan to do more than hug him.

What?

I sit through dinner and a show with a man who picks lint off my hair and clothing while correcting my grammar and you all want me to do what exactly?

I will be honest. I like him. I particularly love the fresh scent of lavender Mistolin which lingers in the clean air after he vacates my newly-cleaned premises, but I don’t know if I can stand the constant preening.

As a reminder of his impending journey out of my life, I sprinkle curry powder on the welcome mat right before he comes over to visit. And like clockwork, he kisses me on the cheek, pulls lint from my brow, comments on my lackluster exfoliation technique…all the while shaking the rug contents onto the peonies.

This man is a far cry from the ever-supportive goat I pledged to marry a few years back.