Sorry cows
About 3years ago, I was visiting my cousins who live in a rural area. I’d been looking for something to get them, as was our custom. My gift found the form of a water bomb catapult. I had a glance at the description, saying it needs 3 people to fire (perfect, there were 4 of us, but one was on crutches after knee surgery) very powerful and for over 18s only. I pay my £20 and a few days later it arrives.

I should have known from the sheet of warnings/legal disclaimers that I had something I shouldn’t. I should have known to follow the advice, maybe it said don’t fire at people animals or property for a reason. But being 17 and with equally immature boys of the same age we proceeded to get a few practice shots in before we take to finding targets.

But what to shoot? Why I saw a herd of cows and thought “I see no moral problem with shooting cows.” Now, we may be immature but we weren’t daft. Realising the farmer may have objections to use firing on his cows, we came back just after midnight and crept into the darkened field. We moved silently like marines on a recon mission, catapult over my shoulder, to my side was one of my cousins with a bucket of water bombs and water to cushion their journey. A few feet ahead was my eldest cousin, finding our rout.

At this point I feel compelled to mention that the catapult could throw a water bomb the size of a large orange for well over 200 meters, or if fired vertically, could send it aloft for 5-7 seconds.

We found our targets and got into position, taking it in turns to fire on the cows. How we laughed as the water bombs thudded on their sides, how we shrieked with glee at head shots. How we laughed when the calf caught one in the side. We hit 10 cows all in all, from close range, before deciding enough was enough and returning home to tell tales of our adventures to our fathers. The sad part is that’s the proudest my Dad has ever looked of me.

The next day while sitting around a table talking of the previous nights adventure my uncle returned from his walk looking troubled.

“The cows have been moved from that field boys.”

Nine words that made my balls go back in a little way.

Being men of science, we deduced that some mark must have been left, and decided to set about testing the catapults strength. Using a piece of chip board as a shield, my cousin agreed to test the strength of a water bomb fired from a similar distance to we were to the cows, pulled back the same amount and of course, the water bomb was the same sort of size.

“FIRE!”

It took a second to realise what had happened, why was Nick clutching his ribs and shouting? Why wasn’t the chip board wet? Then we noticed the hole. We had blown a hole into a piece of chip board, to thick to stamp in half with a water bomb. It had carried on with enough force to bruise my cousin’s ribs.
That force had hit cows in the side, arse and face. Even a little calf had been hit in the attack.

I still laugh about it to this day, but I also feel slight shame, the type I’d imagine you’d feel after beating some one up who didn’t really deserve it.

That’s when I went too far.
(Mong goose, Fri 10 Nov 2006, 16:13, Reply)