When Thomas Gray wrote that line little did he know it would apply to me. I shall explain. “Low” is right. We cows have a very strict order of precedence. Every day when we wander down the track from the field to the milking shed we have a very strict sequence of which cow precedes who. Speaking for myself, I am third to last; or to put it cruelly, I am 247th out of 249 beasts. It is humiliating to be so far down the list, but I am quite small as a cow, and I used to be last in the procession.
How we have to fight to climb the ladder of precedence. I was triumphant over two cows who are now last and second to last. The cow just ahead of me is a show-off. She thinks she’s the cat’s pyjamas. Well I had it in my head to take her place as fourth to last and shove her down to third to last. But it was not to be.
You see, let me tell you what happened. I was quietly grazing in the field when the time came to head for the milking shed. I had just found a lush patch of buttercups and was totally engrossed in such a festal dish. When I looked up, all the other cows had gone and the farmer had shut the gate.
I was inadvertently forgotten. I have to spend the day all by myself in this field (I like to call it a “meadow” as the word has a touch of class) and now I have lost my order of precedence in the line and will be down at the very bottom again. My destiny is to be last. Last. Last in everything. Life sucks. But, as my grandmother used to say, there’s no use crying over spilt milk.
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