Holy COW!

Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Vexrhy Hills, Virginia, lived an old man named Jaiden Gale. Mr.Gale was a surly old man who wanted nothing more in life than to penalize anyone who stepped foot on his property. Jaiden Gale was the 3rd generation owner of the Gale Family Cow Farm. This farm was very well known in Vexrhy Hills for their one of a kind strawberry milk, made with absolutely no artificial flavors. Now you may be asking yourself, how can strawberry milk have no artificial flavors? Well, that’s another reason why the Gale family farm was so special. Their farm was the only farm ever that had bred real life Strawberry Cows!

The Gale family was very protective of their Strawberry Cows. They had to be protective, or else another family in town, The Jebbs Family, might steal their secrets and breed their own Strawberry Cows just for money. The eldest son of the Jebbs Family, Ahriman Jebbs, seemed to have it out for Jaiden Gale. He did nothing but prey on Jaiden’s demise. They had been at it with each other since grade school, considering their families had always been rivals, but once both Jaiden and Ahriman inherited their family’s farms, they took it to a whole new level of competition. If one farm had something cool, the other farm would soon have it too, and at a cheaper price so they could sell more. When Ahriman’s mother passed away, Jaiden didn’t see it as a bonding experience. No. He took it a step further and filled the Jebbs family farm cow pastures with signs and sent drones over the farm that sent thousands of flyers soaring down through the air. The flyers and the signs all throughout the farm said “ur mom”. Jaiden knew that this was a mean thing to do, but it was his turn to get back at the Jebbs. Nothing was ever peaceful between the two old men. The only thing they had in common was their surly attitude towards any outsider who stepped foot on their property.

One day, Ahriman had had enough. He decided to plan the ultimate overthrow of the Gale Family name. In order to do this, he went to the local elementary school in Vexrhy Hills, and he pretended to be Jaiden Gale. His guise was very believable to the eyes of everyone in town due to the fact that both men were old and never got out much. Mean old Mr.Jebbs knew how to get under Mr.Gale’s skin, so he decided to sign up the Gale Family Farm to be the location of the next kindergarten field trip to learn all about cows and dairy production. Mr.Gale was clueless as to what was going on, so he just kept on keeping on, working on his farm.

Soon enough, the day of the field trip came around. The still clueless Mr.Gale got up that morning and started outside to turn out the horses and feed the cows, until he heard a noise. Confused, Mr.Gale asked his wife, Martha, “Honey do you see something?”.

“What is it dear?” she replied.

“It looks like 100 little cows running around outside!” Jaiden proclaimed.

Martha knew how paranoid her husband could get about people on their property, so in response, she said “Of course! It’s a cow farm, you’re gonna have cows outside!”

Jaiden knew that something felt off, so he went to check it out.

As he began walking closer, he noticed a big yellow school bus in his long driveway! The closer he got, he realized that they weren’t cows, they were 100 little kindergarteners running all around his farm in costumes! Most of them were dressed as cows, but some were different animals like pigs, horses, geese, and even one dinosaur! All the kids were running wild! A group of the kids were wearing converse shoes and decided to take them off of their feet and throw them high up into the air to see if they would land upright. One pair of shoes went zooming through the air and hit Mr.Gale right on the head! The whole bunch of students and their teachers, who were desperately attempting to wrangle all of the kids together, fell silent. All eyes floated onto Mr.Gale, whose face was as red as a tomato and you could practically see the steam coming out of his ears!

“What is going on here?” Mr.Gale shouted with anger in his voice. “And don’t just give an arbitrary answer! Tell me, who put you up to this? Was it that foul old man Jebbs?”

“Sir please, you’re scaring the children”, one of the teachers stated, in a soft, passive tone.

Jaiden grabbed two of the kids by their geese costumes and held them up in the air.

“There are kids running wild on my farm! I deserve to know what is happening here!” he exclaimed.

“Sir! Emancipate the geese this instant!” one of the teachers cried out.

Mr.Gale dropped the kids on the ground and they went running towards their teachers and cowering behind them. By the time one of the teachers had been able to explain the situation to Mr.Gale, in came Mr.Jebbs with his maniacal laugh.

“So I see you have visitors?” Mr.Jebbs proclaimed.

“It was you! I knew it had to be you!” Mr.Gale replied. “You’ve always been jealous of what I have. Why can’t you ever just leave my accolade winning cows alone you Lizard!?”

“Lizard? Did you just call me a Lizard?”

“Yes! You heard me! You’re a slimy lizard, always coming in, unwelcome, and getting in my business. I know I’ve played along before but I say we call a truce and agree to coexist in this town. We don’t have to be friends but I would much prefer not being enemies” Mr.Gale continued.

The men stood there in front of all of the eager kindergarten students and all of their confused teachers. They looked at each other, and looked at the kids, then looked back at each other.

“Maybe you’re right. It’s time we settled this feud, once and for all, and agreed to remain neighborly instead,” Mr.Jebbs stated. “I realize that I’ve gone too far by allowing pesky little kids to roam around your property, so in exchange for a truce, what do you say these kids come on over to my farm and I give them a tour while you tend to your animals in peace”.

Mr.Gale was stunned at the change of heart that Mr.Jebbs had at that moment. At first, he figured there were strings attached, but after Mr.Jebbs started rounding up the kids towards his farm, Mr.Gale realized it was true.

“I know I’ve done my fair share of wrong by you, Ahriman, and I’m sorry for it, and I would greatly enjoy ending our feud and being neighborly with one another”.

The children watching and teachers watching were appalled at the fast resolution to such a long, drawn out fight between the two families.

The two men went their separate ways, and no more outrageous stories were able to be told about the family farms and their ridiculous feud. When one man would pass the other, they would wave kindly and politely and keep on their own way. All it took to end a century-long family feud was a whole bunch of exhaustion from keeping up the act, and a teeny tiny change of heart.