Cryogenetics

My work sometimes takes me to different parts of the country and different cultures. Some cultures are just a little too weird for my comfort.

I was working in the Midwest when one of my co-workers was expressing his delight at having bought a new bull. He told us that it was a prize-winning bull and that he was going to sell its semen for big dollars. He even told us that he named the bull after the company we work for and showed phone pictures of this fine example of bovine masculinity. He was very excited about his new acquisition.

He then went on to explain that one could not just collect the semen and freeze it to send to a buyer, oh no, but that you had to ‘cryogenetically’ freeze it. (He had obviously misunderstood cryogenics and genetics and just made them into one word.)

I let him tell us all about his new bovine beauty for about a half an hour and never even made one snarky comment, even though I put quite a bit of effort into not laughing out loud at the situation and his choice of words. He made it sound like he was in love with the damn thing.

Now that this situation is far in the past and I will never see these people again I can share with you (My digital friends) the mind’s eye picture that kept recurring while I was listening to this man share his delight at his unrealized riches from selling his bovine’s seed.

I kept imagining this guy harvesting these precious fluids himself, grinning from ear to ear while holding a receptacle in his free hand.

I shall leave it up to you to figure out what he was doing with the busy hand.