Ex In-laws..... bulls and farm gate greeting committees

Now and then in life some of us end up with the in-laws from hell. It was just me rotten luck many years back to inherit such in-laws. Let's just say using the term EX- In laws was a relief to utter from time to time.
Now and then, they would pay me an unwanted visitation.Upon said arrival, we would go through the usual reminders of the bad ex wife of their beloved son, doing the dirty on him, and all of that kind of stuff Ex-inlaws from hell tend to do.

There comes a time when said Ex-daughter in law decides enough is enough. The solution to ending those unwanted visitations couldn't have come soon enough.

One warm summer's day I got got a frantic phone call from one of my sister in laws saying the Ex-in laws were on their way up to pay me yet another of those visitations. I mean how many of those visitations does one need, before the eyes start glazing over and the brain turns to the same texture as mushed swiss cheese. Well I suppose this was just going to be that one visitation too many in my view.

Having barely a couple of hours to think of ways to escape the dreaded Ex-In Laws I had to come up with a solution and fast! After a couple of quickly consumed coffees which really caused the adrenalin levels to rise to somewhat record levels (there might have even been a few dents in the walls from me bouncing off them) at last - I came up with a fool proof plan.

It's the kind of plan one can come up with in a desperate hurry when ex in-laws from hell are about to darken the farm gate with their unwanted shadows. Of course I have to laugh about it now. Maybe at the time it wasn't so funny, but what the heck, there is a very humorous side to it many years down the track so to speak.

With the fool proof plan (or so I figured) now set to implement, I shoved on my gumboots jumped in the four wheel drive and drove down the back of the farm where it wouldn't be seen.

Knowing I had to move our rather large (at the time) Hereford Bull, the old horse and a couple of stroppy Red Devon cows..letting them out was easy....I just kind of left them there on the driveway to watch over things. I figured I had about half an hour to hide before the ex-inlaws from hell showed up at the gate. So I hid like some fugitive watching wide eyed awaiting the dreaded visitation to the farm gate.

And yep sure enough they turned up to be greeted by…..one rather large and mean looking Hereford Bull with an evil glint in one eye and the pirate patch blotch to just make him look all the more intimidating.
There’s one thing you don’t ever do with a bull – don’t look the sod in the eye otherwise you might end up looking like the back end of a stoved in bus or a rather flat pizza.

The showdown at noon commenced. One big mean bull vs ex inlaws from hell on the other side of the gate. And they stared at each other..and stared….and stared…and of course the old fossil horse decided he’d have a nosey as well. His presence was not exactly welcomed with very friendly greetings. For a full half hour the stand off continued. Rather um unpleasant comments could be heard rising from the other side of the gate about animals being left to roam loose on driveways and that kind of annoying irksome event that just had to spoil their day.

From within said Mad Bush Farm dwelling the occupant who had come up with the so called Fool proof Plan by now had an evil grin on her face that broadened with the sound of two car doors being slammed shut. The departure was rather blissful to say the least.

Yes I cackled ..loudly at that. Well I was until the bull walked over the electric wire around my house and commenced with the devouring of an ornamental cabbage tree. Slowly..bit by bit I watch in despair as that rather expensive piece of vegetation vanished into the bull’s moving jaws. He left me with the roots – how generous of him (not).

Lesson learned from this? The smirk gets wiped off the face when there’s a big load of bull munching on your best ornamentals.

PS I do have a cartoon cooking up on the paper for this one.