Strange Meat - January 7, 2026

Yesterday, I accompanied The Husband to a couple of follow-up doctor visits.  We left the house in the morning, got home at supper time.  

The first visit was with his dermatologist.  We got shuffled around between rooms, and at one point we were sent to a small waiting room that was separate from the big one in the front of the office.  There were about 10 people in the room, and some of them had been there long enough to have started conversations with other patients.  The atmosphere became rather like "old home week" as people discovered mutual friendships and interests.

I had taken a book to read while we waited and was not paying much attention to the conversations when two guys behind me started talking about hunting.  One guy said his grandson had killed a bobcat and the two of them had skinned it.  Something about the way he was telling the story made me turn and ask, incredulously, "Are you intending to EAT the bobcat?"  He kind of laughed and explained that it wasn't a regular cat, like a housecat, but he never admitted nor denied that there was bobcat meat in his freezer.  

I asked him if he'd ever eaten groundhog ( Susan's fancy: Another One - March 23, 2022 ), but we were called back to an examining room before he had a chance to answer.  

We had over two hours to kill before the next appointment.  We grabbed some lunch, then The Husband asked if I had any ideas about how to kill the rest of the time.  Despite my vow not to buy any more craft supplies this month, I suggested we could go to the hobby store.  

In the hobby store, there was an elderly lady, pushing a walker, who called to us as we passed her.  "Excuse me, can you help me?"  She was holding a stuffed animal toy.  "Is this a buffalo?"

I said, "No, ma'am, that's a highland cow."

She'd never heard of a highland cow.  She explained that she had traveled from (somewhere) and was about to go visit her brother, who was "a big Buffalos fan."  She thought it would be funny to take him a buffalo.  She was mightily disappointed that the toy she held was a cow.  She thanked us and lumbered away.

A few minutes later, The Husband discovered a small plastic buffalo among some other plastic animals on a shelf.  We grabbed it and started looking for the old lady.  When we found her and showed her the plastic buffalo, she was thrilled. "It really IS a buffalo," she exclaimed, "and it's only $5.99!"

We felt as though we'd done a good deed.  :)