Save Your Nipples...

Humboldt County may be well know for it's "green grass", and big logs but it also has a thriving dairy industry.  In the latter part of the 19th century Swiss-Italian and Portuguese immigrants came to work and to start their own dairies throughout Humboldt county.  Today the Portuguese still dominate the dairy business up here. 
I've watched the TV shows "Dirty Jobs" and "World's Toughest Jobs" and I vote that dairymen should win first place for both of those shows.  I don't need to tell you why I vote it the world's dirtiest job but in case you need me tell you it's full on non stop crap.  Getting crapped on directly from the source, stepping in it, shoveling it, wearing it, spreading it...  I vote it the toughest job because you do NOT get a day off.  Those girls need to be milked twice a day and they are on a schedule.  There are no sick days, no vacation days, no personal days, no I'm too hung over to get out of bed days, no it's too cold/rainy/hot/snowy to go to work days...You get no days off.  Period.  When those guys aren't milking they are scraping up poop, feeding, watering, tending to sick animals, fixing fences, fixing machinery,  planting hay, irrigating pastures, cutting hay, baling hay, storing hay, breeding animals, calving, selling animals, watching the milk market prices, selling their milk... At some point they must fall over and sleep a few hours before they have to get up in the dark of the morning and do it all over again.  All that work so we can have some extra whip on our mochas in the morning. 
Last week, one of our hard working Portuguese dairy farmers stopped by the veterinary office to pick up a few things.  He's a lovable guy, still hard working into his early 80's.  He loves to come into the office and charm all of us "beautiful senoritas" in his thick-as-pee-soup accent (which usually takes me about a minute of lag time to figure out what he just said).   Well, on this visit another good client and friend of mine was in chatting about her horse.  She had met this diary farmer a few weeks earlier when he walked off with one of her calenders she had for sale for Christmas.  He proceeded to tell her that he gave her calender to his brother-in-law in southern California.  He explained that he had horses down there that pulled wagons and not only that but he sucked on his mother.  Okay, so my minute of lag time was up and I still didn't know what he was talking about.  He was looking at us like "You know!  Sucking on his mother."  
I was now totally lost in the wilderness of translation and I gave him my best obvious puzzled look and my friend nodded at me. 
"Sucking on her nipples!" He said.
My friend's face was candy apple red. 
"He's a momma's boy?" I asked.
"Yes!  Momma's boy!"
We all laughed relieved this conversation made some awkward sense and was over...we thought.
He paid his bill and was getting ready to leave when he shook his finger at my friend, looked her straight in the eyes and said, "You save your nipples for some one good!  You understand?" 
She nodded.
He said something else as he walked out the door and my friend, who's nerves seemed a bit frayed at this point, yelled "What did he say?" 
After I had my minute of lag time I realized he said "Have a beautiful year." 

Don't let anyone take advantage of yours!

 It's not everyday, or really any day for that matter, that you get such serious advise concerning your nipples.  I began to think about this topic after he left and it all started to make sense when I began to think about his job.  Talking about nipples, for him, is like someone talking about using their computer or cash register at work.  He has spent his whole life yanking on nipples to make a living. Talking about nipples is just shop talk for him.  But you know?  He's right.  Don't just give yours away especially to someone who is not good.
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