Funny story that came up in chat last night:
DH is in the Army. We've had a Navy Goat hanging (literally) in our house for years now. At some point, I mentioned this to Cindy (cgcw), but never had a chance to explain the story behind it. It would come up in passing every once in a while in conversation (come on, you've never had the topic of a hanging goat just come up in your conversations???)
Well, last night as we were in chat, Cindy happened to remind me that she didn't know the story behind the hanging goat, so I decided to tell it to her. Here is the (somewhat boring) story:
While dh was going through the Navy Test Pilot School, I was teaching the fourth grade at a private school. Many of my students had parents in the Navy. Since we are an Army family, this was a new experience for us. When the time came for the Army-Navy football game, there was a lot of light-hearted rivalry going back and forth. As part of this, I told my students that if they cheered for the Army during the football game in their homes, and Army won the game, I would cancel all homework assignments for a week.
Some of my students actually cheered for Army, much to their dads dismay! But one of my students, Lance was a diehard Navy fan. We would tease back and forth for the rest of the year about which was better. At the end of the year, I received traditional end of the year gifts from my class (this was actually a great class... I received a handmade quilt, full of hand-drawn pictures from all of my students). As I opened the box from Lance, I discovered a Navy goat (think Beanie Baby size). We started laughing, since the entire class thought this was hysterical. As I went to throw away the twine that Lance's mom had tied around the box, the loop that I hadn't untied went around the goat's neck and picked it up (it wasn't on purpose, I promise!!!). As I sat there with the hanging goat, I told Lance, "Thanks for giving me what I've always wanted! The Navy Goat in a noose!!"
We moved to a new house that summer, and when I was unpacking, I absent-mindedly threw the noosed goat over a hinge on the back door. I took a picture of the hanging goat, and sent it back to my old students for them to see. They loved it. My own kids thought it was so funny, that the goat never came down, and when we moved into our current house, ds demanded that I hang the goat back up.
That's the whole story. Well the funny part is that after I tell the story, Cindy tells me that the entire time we've talked about the goat in the past, she and her son Cameron have been picturing a FULL-SIZED goat hanging in our house!!!!
Now this brings up a couple of questions:
1. Where in the world would you hang up a full-sized goat in your house?
2. Why would Cindy EVER let her child communicate with freaks who hung up a full-sized goat in their house??? (We all know that hanging up a Beanie Baby sized goat is perfectly natural

)