We've gone around and around over the years on the question of whether the practice of "cow tipping" — described on Wikipedia as "the purported activity of sneaking up on a sleeping, upright cow and pushing it over for fun" — is fact or fiction.
Some scoffers point out the obvious: cows don't normally sleep standing up. Others object that toppling a half-ton mammal is easier said than done. Both arguments make sense to me, not to mention the fact that if it does exist, cow tipping is a pretty clear-cut case of animal cruelty and ought to be illegal, if it isn't already.
Notwithstanding those objections, someone near and dear to me swears with hand on heart that she actually witnessed an instance of cow tipping during her youth in rural upstate New York. Being a professed agnostic on the subject, it pains me to admit that it may well be true. I've long wished the victims of these alleged assaults could speak on their own behalf.
Now comes this headline in today's Knoxville News Sentinel: "Man Tipped by Cow at UT Farm."
Revenge is sweet.
Read more:
• The Physics of Cow Tipping
• Florida to Consider Ban on 'Cow Tipping'
• How to Cow Tip
• Experts Dispute Cow Tipping Theory
• Is There Really Such a Thing as Cow Tipping?
Comments
My mom grew up in rural Wisconsin (America’s dairyland), and they absolutely tipped cows. Bored teenagers would get drunk, go out in the fields and tip a cow over, and run away before the farmer caught them. She maintains that it didn’t hurt the cows, just made them moo like crazy.