The cow has been located

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It turns out, when you have two people who struggle with basic things, working in the same office, there can be some pretty entertaining moments.

One of the more recent examples, would be the cow incident. I volunteered to make a powerpoint for the Holcombe Veterans Memorial group to display at Lake Holcombe School’s Veterans Day program. Creating the display went smoothly enough, but then there was the issue of how to get the powerpoint to the school.

After talking to the school, we decided the best way would be to email the slides and send a back-up copy of the presentation on a thumb drive.

That’s where the cow comes in. I was given a thumb drive shaped like a cartoon cow by a former co-worker a few years ago. I’m not sure if he thought I needed the drive, or if he just didn’t want to be seen with a very happy cow figurine. Either way, I thought it was cute and happily accepted it.

Since I was not scheduled to cover the Lake Holcombe ceremony, I said I would send the flash drive along with my coworker, Ginna, in case the back-up copy was needed. After all, stuff does tend to go sightly awry around me.

So, I loaded the presentation onto my little cow and showed the cute trinket to my coworkers. Ginna was a little disturbed by the fact that the head comes off, but the head is the part that connects to the computer. She stuck the thumb drive into her camera bag so it was along.

From what I heard, the ceremony and presentation went well.

Then, I asked for my thumb drive back. Ginna asked where it was the next time she was at the school, but didn’t get a definitive answer on the little cow’s whereabouts. I asked around at the school and no one seemed to know where it is. At one point, Ginna even emailed the media/technology staff to check if they had come across it. Nothing. Nada. Zero.

After two days of, admittedly half-heartedly, searching for the lost cow, I gave up. I kind of took the, “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” mentality. It’ll either show up, or it won’t.

I figured the chances of the thumb drive showing up was a little better, considering the name of it is Julia. Whoever plugs it in would figure it out eventually.

That didn’t stop me from talking to my co-workers about it. How can people not remember seeing a cow-shaped thumb drive? It is kind of memorable. All my co-workers agreed.

I was a little sad about losing the cute cow, but I was also a little sad that my only copy of my honors senior thesis presentation from college was on the drive. I hope whoever has the drive enjoys learning about the environmental policy of the Soviet Union. I enjoyed learning about it.

After a little more discussion, I asked Ginna when she had last seen the thumb drive. She hadn’t. She thought I gave it to someone from the memorial group.

At that point, I just stared at Ginna and said, “Well, then it is in your camera bag.”

After a minimal amount of digging, Ginna found it. Look, there’s a cow in my bag, while laughing sheepishly.

Apparently, the cow was not as memorable as we all thought. Ginna had no recollection of the conversation I had with her before giving her the thumb drive, or of me pulling the cow’s head off, or putting the cow in her own camera bag. We’re blaming exhaustion.

Anyway, we all laughed for a long time and immediately started hashing out who would write about the tale, since a story so good needs to be shared.

Then, all I had to do is resist calling the school and leaving an after-hours voicemail that said, “The cow has been located.”