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A few times a day I go out and hang around with them, giving them bites of whatever treat I have chosen for them. They jockey for position and furiously lip the goods up out of my hand.
I have been doing this since we got them in 2009.
On the day that will live in infamy, I was holding out two handfuls of goodies and they were lipping feverishly in an attempt to finish what was offered so they could then steal their brother’s goods.
With a sudden attack of shivery dismay, I realized that the goats were not the only ones doing some lipping.
My lips were distorting right along with them, copying their motion in a most unseemly manner.
I quit it at once, peering guiltily over both shoulders to see if there were any witnesses. There weren’t, but I was besieged by an unpleasant thought that would not go away.
Had I been doing this for seven years without knowing it?
I was determined to defeat this corrupt habit immediately. Steeling myself to be a better man, I clamped my traitorous lips together as if I was engulfed in a storm of tongue eating wasps.
For the next two weeks I adopted a tight-lipped, Clint Eastwood-like demeanor every time I got close to the goats. No lipping for me, no siree, not even a little pooch of a lower lip that was throbbing from the strain of clenching.
Slowly the stress ebbed away, and then it happened again when I was giving them bites of an apple. I couldn’t control it, didn’t feel it sneaking up on me until the unbidden lipping took over. My spirits sunk, this was like fighting an addiction!
A week later it happened again.
“Woe is me!” I thought, “Am I turning into Lippy Goatenstein?”
I made the mistake of telling my youngest son Heath about my soul-wrenching dilemma. It was like telling Donald Trump there were a dozen TV cameras around the corner.
Heath jumped on the goat lip train and refused to even think of any other subject until he had voiced and questioned every aspect that could even remotely be connected to my alleged goat lips.
“I honestly think that your lips are growing Dad, they should be actual goat size in a month or so.”
“Wow, I bet you could do a TV commercial for Goat Lip Balm.”
“Gee Dad, maybe there’s a Goat Lips Anonymous in town.”
The latest idea spawned a demeaning conversation concerning the likely clientele who would attend a GLA meeting. Somehow, his descriptions of my alleged hobo-like companions did not drop their status compared with me, the original Mr. Lippy.
At least he didn’t accuse me of having unnatural relations with the goats. I realized that had our positions been reversed, and he was the lipper in question, I could never have refrained from making some crass remark about such a thing.
Well, you know what crass rhymes with.
I think I have thought, said and heard quite enough about my affliction. In closing, I’m pretty sure I have thought of the perfect solution to this perplexing situation.
Red wax lips are just what I need!
I’m not sure what the neighbors will think, but my mental health is the top priority in the backyard right now.
Oh hell, the goats are lipping at me right now. I better rush to town and get those wax lips. I think I will look to see if there is such a thing as Goat Lip Balm, too.
You never know when some might come in handy.