I live a classy life.

Yesterday morning, my beautiful wife woke up and announced that she was going to the goat auction. And then she asked me if I wanted to go.

 

It was at this point that I realized how much I was in love with her.

 

For you ‘city folk’ who have never been to the goat auction, well, all I can say is that your life is unfulfilled.

 

We went out and hooked the livestock trailer to my truck and off we went.

 

My wife reminded me that I better pee before we go because their facility was a faded, old outhouse that hadn’t been dumped since Carter was president.

 

“Oh yeah, you also better eat something. I don’t have any cash and you know they don’t take cards at the snack bar.”

 

That’s was a real disappointed. When we got there, I browsed the menu written on a sheet of notebook paper tacked to the outside of the ‘Snack Bar.’

 

It was only slightly less clean than the outhouse in which I was not supposed to pee.

 

There was a choice of the corn dog ‘platter’ or a hot dog ‘platter’.

 

You could purchase each of the items individually but then you’d miss out on the stale bag of Better Value corn chips and a warm RC Cola.

 

I guess they must have lost their Michelin Star chef since the last time we were there.

 

So, for you people who have never been lucky enough to go to the goat auction, let me paint you a picture of the experience.

 

Imagine a bomb was thrown into a dumpster and spread used lumber, scrap metal, tools that don’t work and all types of miscellaneous crap all over the dirt yard of your hillbilly neighbor who hasn’t had any of his own teeth since 3rd grade and runs an illegal toxic dump.

 

That’s the goat auction.

 

We pulled up and I immediately noticed some little kid wearing nothing but a dirty diaper, playing in the dirt and eating goat poop next to the holding pens.

 

Yep, this was the place.

 

We brought our own chairs because, well frankly, I would not sit my ass, even covered, onto the collection of plastic chairs found at the dump and broken

BarcaLoungers with the springs poking out.

 

Now, for all you folks who don’t know the proper protocol for

such an event, let me give you some advice.

 

You never just sit on your broken plastic chair and wait for the auction to start.

 

First, you must browse the merchandise.

 

In our case, we were looking for a specific type of goat. But we were compelled to check out the other merchandise up for grabs.

 

First, we visited the shelter containing all types of fowl.

 

If you replaced the word ‘fowl’ with foul, you’d be on target.

 

The odor in that shelter was akin to the smell of what morticians pump out of the bodies of dead people.

 

My wife called it acrid.

 

She’s from Thomasville and has always thought she’s better than me.

 

The fowl barn is a series of long tables upon which sits a collection of ducks, geese, guinea fowls, turkeys, quail and every species of chicken known to man.

 

There were little black chickens, big red chickens and some chickens who were featherless.

 

I don’t know if they were ‘supposed’ to be that way or if they were involved some type of Chicken MMA.

 

If it could grow a feather, it was represented among this collection of animals stuffed into the cages and lined up like planes on a runway.

 

The cages were quite creative.

 

Somebody had made cages out of what looked like old razor wire reclaimed from our southern border. Others were fashioned from rusty chicken wire formed into every shape imaginable.

 

Some were round, some were conical. Most were shapes that I had never learned in my high school geometry.

 

I’m pretty sure the cage that held a whole covey of baby quail was a quadriparallelaheptatrapazoid.

 

Apparently a few of the folks who built those cages had studied structural engineering at Georgia Tech.

 

After we decided than none of these feathered critters would be coming to live a Chez Lovett, we moved around to the goat pens.

 

On the way, we passed a large crate holding a sickly looking bird. There was a sign on the front of the cage that read ‘Quarritine.’

 

I’m pretty sure they meant quarantine. But maybe it was an exotic type of bird for all I knew. The rare Australian Double Breasted Red-Beaked Turkey Buzzard.

 

I reckon because of his rare pedigree, the sickly bird deserved his own private suite.

 

We approached the goat pens and I wondered aloud if the fellow who built this ramshackle series of pens had gotten the death penalty when the code inspector showed up.

 

All of these pens were actual shapes I recognized. Squares, which was amazing since they looked to be made of old lumber strewn through the woods by a hurricane.

 

One pen was made of plywood. Another from tree branches.

 

There was also a big sign on the wall that said all of these animals has been recently inspected and declared ‘healthy’ by the USDA Animal Health

 

Inspector.

 

Poor fellow.

 

This ragtag collection on tiny cubes held goats and sheep of all varieties.

Some had long horns and beards. Others had floppy ears that hung down to the ground. Most goats were standing in their muddy cubes.

 

You know something must be disgusting for a goat not to lay down in it.

 

My wife found the goats she wanted to purchase and we returned to the auction area.

 

There were maybe 50 people crammed under a shelter built to hold 20. Most looked like they had not bathed since the last leap year.

 

I looked to my left and saw two little kids playing in the dirt. They were busy grabbing big handfuls of dirt and dumping them over each other’s heads.

 

That was okay with me. Kids love playing in the dirt. My kids did.

 

But this was dirt that overflowed out of the goat pens right behind them.

 

My wife nudged me and pointed at one of the kids who had stopped throwing dirt and was now sucking on her filthy fingers.

 

I gagged a little. So did my wife.

 

“Her mother must buy worm medicine by the shipping crate,” she said.

 

I was about to point out that Covid didn’t have a chance of killing that kid. She was immune to everything. But then a little boy who looked like he has been eating mud strolled up to the old man sitting in front of us.

 

“Papa, buy me a goat.”

 

The old man turned to Mud Mouth and said he was here to buy ducks.

 

The little boy poked his lips out and walked away- probably to eat another fresh handful of mud laced with a healthy dose of parasites and anthrax.

 

Sure beats the corn dog platter.

 

Finally, after 30 minutes of watching kids get parasites and our neighbors talking about how ‘purdy’ the goats were, the auctioneer stepped up on the small platform down front.

 

He immediately handed the microphone to a women wearing cut off blue jeans and an old Merle Haggard t-shirt who was selling raffles tickets.

 

It was loud under there so I wasn’t exactly sure what the raffle was for. I think the prize was either some used mobile home skirting or a new set of teeth. Just the uppers.

 

She then proceeded to walk through the crowd hawking the tickets. Up close, you could see that that she could have benefitted from that last prize.

 

The auction started and that’s when the real fun began.

 

Imagine fifty people yelling out bids, a thousand chickens screaming in the background and an angry goat up onstage with the auctioneer, trying to eat his shirt.

 

I imagined that this must be what hillbilly heaven looks like.

 

One of the goats that we were interested in came up for auction. I was about to bid on it when Mud Mouth sauntered back up to his gramps.

 

“Papa, please buy me a goat.”

 

“I told you I was here to get me a duck.”

 

The kid began to cry and I watched as the tears left little trails as they traveled down his muddy face.

 

I was so enthralled with watching this scene from rural Appalachia that I missed out on the goat.

 

Dangit!

 

Papa handed Mud Mouth a couple of dollars and told him to go get him a corn dog. Couldn’t afford a platter.

 

Guess the old man’s disability check was lost somewhere in the mail.

 

A few more goats came up for auction, the little kids continued to throw dirt on each other and Mud Mouth came back with his corn dog.

 

He chewed loudly with his mouth open right in front of me.

 

It was at this moment my wife said she was ready to go.

 

I looked over at the dirty little kids eating dirt and waved goodbye. One of them grinned and I saw dirt on his teeth.

 

On the way home, my wife looked over at me and said maybe we should start our livestock auction.

 

My answer was simple and to the point.

 

“Please let me die first.”