Pomeranian

For the first nine years of my life, I was an only child. My little sister would be born in the summer of '95, but prior to that, my cousins made up for my lack of sibling companionship. We were all close in age with a five year spread between us. Brandi was the oldest, followed by me, then Cody, and Chelsi was the youngest. We were much more than cousins or even siblings, we were each other's very best friends.

I lived with my mom in an apartment in the "city". Really it was a small town with a population of roughly 10,000 people, but as kids, it felt like a city. They lived about an hour away in the country on a 13,000 acre farm.

Yes you read that correctly, 13,000 acres. There they farmed wheat, alfalfa, and mint. They kept horses, cows, chickens, goats, pigs, and peacocks. We had at least 3 Bambi's; baby fawns rescued during hunting season, and even a bullfrog named Jeremiah. Each year my Aunt Tammy grew a massive garden full of any vegetable your heart could desire and sunflowers bigger than your face. Oh, and they had a river running right through their property.

Needless to say, there was rarely a dull moment on Big Sky Ranch. We were blessed with long hot summers spent swimming and riding horses bareback under irrigation sprinklers. We didn't have the internet, social media, or cell phones. We played 'crack the egg' on the sunken trampoline; buried at ground level in the front yard. We dug holes with Tonka trucks and borrowed silverware from the kitchen in a giant mound of mud, fondly referred to as "Dirt Hill". We picked slivers out of our fingers and burs out of our feet. Nothing slowed us down for long and we grew up understanding what hard work was.

There were chores, of course; feeding baby calves, shoveling pig pens, brushing out the horses after we rode. But we always managed to squeeze fun into whatever we were doing. And mischief, of course...

Each spring we would have a massive round-up of all the cattle. We'd bring them into the front pasture near the house to prepare the newest members of the herd for branding and tagging. Once the cowboys were saddled up, they'd drive the herd over to to the chute area up the hill from the house. After a day of 200 cows being kept in the front pasture, you can imagine the mess they'd leave behind.

Being curious kids, we'd head out there to explore the chaos, trudging around in the muck. All it took was a single "Mud Pie' to be thrown by my cousin Cody, then all hell broke loose. Within minutes, my cousins and I were covered from head to toe in cow shit. Laughing, squealing, and chasing each other - we ran back to the farm house.

We were met by Aunt Tammy coming out of the house with her signature SOMEONE IS IN BIG TROUBLE face... enter, the "Pomeranian".

Tammy is about 4 foot nothin' but strong as an ox. She ran the household and was one of the kindest women you'd ever meet, until you pissed her off. When she got really angry, she'd jut out her bottom teeth (earning her the nickname Pomeranian, spoken only in secret between us kids) and talk to us in the sternest, clipped voice she could muster outta that cute little short stack of a body. She was barely taller than us and we all knew deep down, she was a big softie.

Yet still here she came, running out of the house with her Pom teeth jutting out, her eyes in shock as she gawked at us completely covered in manure. She tried so hard to be mad, but her jaw quickly softened until she melted into uncontrollable laughter. She called to the other adults in the house who came out and joined in the finger pointing, gut busting scoffs.

We may not have had the internet, or smart phones, but this was still the 90's and a VHS tape recorder was 100% present at this shit-storm. Somewhere tucked away in box, lies the footage of this fateful day. A day my cousins and I still laugh about, and of course, lovingly poke fun at my Aunt T for her Pomeranian phase of life.

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A note from the author - this story was written for the "Inside Jokes" challenge to share a funny, true story about you and one of your childhood friends.