the cow and the crane

When I was in my final year of highschool, which I was very happy about, there were a good handful of my classmates that were a touch mischievous. This, combined with the usual "grad prank" mentality of the average grade 12 student, produced rather interesting results.

I remember a group of students building a wall, drywall and all, in front of one of the school's entrances.


I remember that same group locking both doors to the cafeteria with chains and padlocks and then starting a full-on water/food fight. I remember the day that they managed to steal the list of locker combinations from the office, and proceeded to remove all the locks and replace them in random order. I also could never forget the day that boxes of crickets were released in the hallways. For hours, all that could be heard was the chirping of the crickets that were still alive and hiding in some dark corner.

But the one that they didn't do, which was talked about, may have been the best one of all. Someone happened to hear that cows can only climb up stairs, and not down. The idea was to lead a cow up to the top floor, and leave it standing innocently in a classroom. The school would have to get a crane to remove it, or something along those lines. That was the thought at least.

I've often been intrigued by that idea, that a cow couldn't go down stairs. I makes sense, seeing as they're pretty darn top heavy, and would probably topple over and break some limbs. But for some reason I've always thought that was quite an amusing piece of information.

Over the past while, we ourselves have had a pseudo "cow and crane" scenario at home. Countless times throughout the day, Plava heads for the stairs. She climbs all the way to the top while I'm making lunch, or dinner, or some delicious treat for dessert.

Sometimes she wanders around upstairs getting into her favourite few things - her shoes which sit on the lower shelf of her change table, or chasing Sylvie the cat around. Yes, those are her two favourites. But there always comes a time when she wants to come back downstairs again, and of course, as you may have guessed, she can't get down stairs.

At this point, she places herself at the top of the stairs and lets out the loudest, funniest voice as she hollers, "MAMAAAA!!!" Who taught her how to call like that? Who knows, but she does it to Ryan when he's around too. "DADAAAAA!!!"

Of course, I'm the crane in the story, so up I go, and as I ascend, she giggles and tears off around the corner, finding it quite funny to be pursued. What a twerp. As soon as I've brought her downstairs, she turns right around and heads back up, intent on playing the whole game over again. Aaah Plava, she makes me laugh.