It happened again: REID #208
trigger warning
SHORT:
As many of you know, once a year, in order to keep my marriage1 alive, I must visit a Vegan Farm Sanctuary upstate that is home to some of the world’s ugliest animals.
This past Saturday was that cursed day.
MEDIUM:
There’s only been 1 animal in the history of the farm I was able to look at without having a panic attack: “Buddy” the goat. He is now dead, so I had nothing to look forward to.
I also used to have an enemy at the sanctuary: “Beatrice” — the fugliest turkey to ever live. When we first started dating, Jess had a calendar on their bedroom wall that prominently featured “Beatrice”. Each morning, my eyes would flutter open, and BAM. There she was. The most satanic-looking bird on earth. I’d stare at her, have 2-3 heart-attacks, and then quietly rise to take a shower.
“Beatrice” has also since passed. Thank god.
LONG:
Now, normally our farm visits consist of:
1. a terribly depressing tour during which Jess takes 5609 photos of pigs with no eyes
and then
2. the longest gift shop visit in the world during which Jess hems and haws over what to purchase before choosing a magnet that has a similar freaky photo of a pig with no eyes on it — except, unlike the plethora of free freaky photo on Jess’s phone, this one’s 300 dollars and lives, in magnet-form, on our fridge where everyone can see it.
But this past visit was different.
Why? Because it was “Harvest Picnic In The Cow Pasture” weekend, of course.
That’s right! An event where you get to sit in cow dung and eat a meal next to the aforementioned cows from which the dung sprung. Whatta treat!2
We drove 2.5-3 hours through Trump country to get there (and by “we”, I mean Jess — I refuse to drive us there, and instead, sit in the passenger seat and go “do you think the duck with no legs is still there? if so, I just want to prepare myself” before Jess turns on the radio*).
*By the way, Jess follows the Instagram religiously and 100 percent knows the answer to questions such as: “do you think the duck with no legs is still there?”, but does not tell me, and instead, makes me sit in Chappell-Roan-underscored suspense as we make our way through the Catskills.
When we arrived at the event, we were given some actually-pretty-good-cider before making our way to the of-course-atrocious-smelling cow barn where we were introduced to depressed creatures like “Heathcliff” and “Mikey”.
Jess fed the inexplicably blindfolded and limping cows alfalfa cubes while I stood back and told the volunteers who kept trying to get me to “join in on the fun” that “Oh sorry, actually, I’m Jewish” [which has nothing to do with whether I can feed/touch animals, but also… has everything to do with it].
After the cows, we moved on over to the “bird area”. Despite the fact that she has CROAKED, there are STILL PHOTOS OF BEATRICE EVERYWHERE.
I had Jess take a picture of me in front of the big tree under which Beatrice was euthanized and subsequently buried. If life was fair, Beatrice would have to look at this photo every morning in the afterlife.
The day concluded with the titular harvest feast in the pasture (Snack Of The Week). The cows got into a huge fight during it and moo’d like you could not imagine. You think you know what a moo sounds like. You don’t. You don’t until you’re trying to eat squash soup on the ground and “Joeyboy” is angry.
As we climbed back into the car to return home, Jess started the engine, and then, got out and RAN ACROSS THE PARKING LOT for “one last photo of the sheep”.
On the way out, they gave us an advanced copy of the 2025 calendar which doesn’t contain any pics of Beatrice (thank god) but does contain a photo of “Tara and Pia” that I’m not loving…
C U Next Tuesday
Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not [it’s a lot like when people slip on ice].If this is your first time reading, pls check out the archives.
Sincerely,
Reid Pope
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Bonus Jonas:
Against my better judgement, I am running the New York City Marathon. Please donate to our marathon fundraiser here! (even $1 helps). ^ Above is a pic after we ran 16 miles (I loved every second of it and did not complain).
My short film, Lesbian Jesus Is Pregnant With Vibes, will screen at NewFest in October! You can get tickets here.
Also, come see Late Stage Live! at The Bell House in November
not married in actuality
food was amazing and event was actually awesome, but I’ll never admit that
Went to bed last night looking forward to hearing about this today lol
this is really funny and reminds me of david sedaris' early stuff