How Victoria’s Secret Got Out

It was a beautiful spring day in early 1994. I had 3 horses at that time, and often enjoyed the beautiful, empty country-side from horse-back. It was perfectly safe to ride along the gravel roads because few vehicles ventured that far out into the boonies. A car could be heard for miles before it got close to the house so there was always plenty of time to get off the road if necessary. The house was so far removed, in fact, that I rarely thought anything of wearing a bathrobe out to the barn for morning feeding, or less than that out to look at the stars at night.

One Saturday morning in the summer while my husband was off doing some army thing, I was awakened by the sound of mooing. It took me less than a minute to shake off my dazed sleep-stupor and come to the conclusion that this sound was not being made by any one of my three equines. On top of that, the great noise seemed to be coming from at least 300 animals of a bovine nature. The nearest cattle ranch was about 4 miles down the road, and I was pretty sure the sound was not carrying quite that far.

I jumped out of bed, still wearing the cute little Victoria’s Secret string-bikini undies and spaghetti-strap midi tank top I had slept in, and trotted down the stairs to be affronted by a horrific view out the large picture window in the front of the house. A large heard of cattle had found the lush patch of grass over my septic system, and were slowly and methodically crushing my lateral lines into oblivion.

With thoughts of the backed up sewage seeping into my basement, I quickly headed out my front door to chase the offending cattle away from that area before all hopes of flushing went completely down the drain.

The grass was thick and green, and the cattle had little interest in my requests that they move on to less-green pastures.
“Haaaww Cow! Haaaawww Cow! Git! Giiiiiiiiiiiiittt!” I yelled at them in vane.
Soon I found myself standing in the middle of the herd, and some of the bovines finally started to move off a bit towards the grass around my driveway.

About this time, I started to realize that cows en mass are prolific producers of natural fertilizer, and that they are also quite loud! Not only was I covered in manure up to my bare knees, but I was half-deaf as well. I kept right on chasing, and finally had the majority of the creatures away from the danger zone.

As I emerged from the midst of the wayward herd, I bumped right into…
“Milt!”
“Hey there. I see you come accrost my cattle. I wanna thank you for… for taking care of ‘em for me.” (Cough, chuckle.) “Was they on your… lines?”
“Um, yeah.” I stammered as I made the dark realization that I had just exposed Victoria’s Secret to my 75-year-old cattle rancher neighbor. “I’ll let you take it from here.”
With that I quickly slunk back into my house, knowing that the manure foot-prints might not be the only thing that would follow me around for a while.

My fears were realized later in the day when I went into town to buy gas for my truck. As I walked in to pay the clerk, the crowd in the little café area grew deathly silent. The clerk flashed her smile at me, took my money and said sweetly, “I hope you didn’t get your cow-pokin’ duds too dirty this mornin’. In fact, a couple of the guys was wonderin’ if you’d just call ‘em up nex time so they could get dirty doin’ some pokin’ with you.”
With that the crowd erupted, and I made for the door, all the while looking for a large rock to crawl under. Over the next few months, I made the trek up to Topeka to do my shopping. Now, years later, I wonder what stories they tell in that little town about the strange lady from back East who got caught chasing cattle in Victoria’s not-so-secret attire.