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In This Issue

• The Monkey Election College
• The Goshen, CT County Fair
• Freak Babies: Gotta Catch 'Em All
• Interview with author Louis Silverstein
• Animals, Placentae and You
• Letters to the Feditor
• 114th Street Rat Rock Exploration
• Bodacious the Rebel Bull
• Fed Arts Review: Columbia Unbecoming
• Mary Had a Little Lamb... with Potatoes
• John Jay Pet Deathmatch
• A Letter to the Columbia Gospel Choir
• DARE: 8 Ways to Say No
• Ice Bitch Comic
• Guide to Naming Suburban Housing Developments
• THEY WATCH

Alice Xie

Dolly learns that champions are made, not born.

"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..." We all know how the song goes: Mary's lamb goes to school, the teacher turns it away, the damn lamb won't go home until Mary gets out of school, and we learn at the end of the song that the lamb loves Mary as much as it does because, surprise surprise, Mary loves the lamb. A happy story to be told to children the world throughout. But what if Mary had been in 4-H? The story would have been a little different.

For starters, before acquiring her darling little woolball, Mary would have most likely had to thoroughly examine her sheep before purchase to make sure he was fit. Can‘t you just imagine our pert little shepherdess peering under her lamb's tail and cupping its little testicles to determine whether or not it was healthy?

Then comes approximately eight months of carefully feeding and exercising your sheep so that it's at the right weight come the state fair. That little lamb better not be so little when the judge comes to caress its ribs and ass.

Finally, show time is only a week away. You have to kick your preparation into high gear. Your lamb's days are filled with learning how to walk properly and stand straight with all four feet square on the ground, answering questions like what that lamb would do with a million dollars, polishing up that dance routine... oh sorry, wrong competition.

Then comes the most important part of the pre-show routine-the bath. You are now going to have to perform a labor worthy of Hercules; you are going to have to remove eight months worth of spit, dirt, sheep feed, snot, and layer upon layer of petrified sheep shit with nothing more than water and liquid dish soap. Rub a dub dub!

But here's the best part; see, sheep don't particularly like to be cleaned, as anyone who's ever been present at a sheep dip can tell you. (What? you've never been to a sheep dip? Loser!) So you've got a trusting friend hanging onto your sheep's halter while you soap it up. The little lamb is happy, maybe just a bit antsy. But then comes time to rinse, and the second that hose hits little lamby, off little lamby goes around the yard with the trusting friend in tow (but she's not bitter, no no, she's not bitter). You finally catch the lamb and calm down your gibbering friend only to find that lamby has run through yet more
dirt and shit, and the whole process is going to have to be repeated.

Finally the big day arrives, and nerves and anticipation are bouncing around your stomach. Sheepy gets loaded up in the back of the old F150 and carted off to the state fairgrounds. You put the final touches on your lamb's coat and proudly lead it into the ring with your hand firmly grasping its chin (don't ask me why, it's the recommended method). Then the judging begins. You'll walk your lamb around the ring while the judge decides whether or not your lamb has a "long bulging stifle", whatever that is, and inspects its rump for muscle, fat and meatiness.

Ten agonizing minutes later, you stand in line with your lamb and the rest of your competitors to find out if your eight months of hard work have paid off. And yes! You've done it! You and darling lamby have won a ribbon! Now the only thing left is the auction...

The what?! The auction?! You mean lamby and I aren't gonna grow old together and end our lives sitting together on the front porch trading war stories? Sorry, Mary, that lamb's going bye-bye. So with regret in your heart and a tear in your eye, you lead your poor woolball into the ring one last time. All of a sudden you're bombarded left and right with the auctioneer's cries: "I've got five dollars here, five fifty, can I get six dollars? I've got seven!" And all of a sudden, that which you have tried to cover up with thoughts of sunshine and rainbows is made brutally clear: these are prices per pound. That's right, your darling lamb, who you have loved and cared for for eight months, is about to be sold and cut up into so many lamb chops, short ribs and rump roasts. You traitor. If that lamb were smart he would so get PETA on your ass. But thus is the cycle of life...