NATURE’S LOGIC

I was marveling at my horses’ tails as they stood around in the shade. A perfect fly-shooing machine.

Then I wondered . . . if it’s so perfect, why doesn’t a cow have a tail like a horse? The answer was obvious. A cow pie is usually much looser, more liquid than a road apple. If a cow had a horse’s tail, it would always be a stiff and sticky mess, unless a cow could preen and lick itself like a cat, which of course it can’t.

It’s the same difference between people with moustaches and people without them. Evolution has predestined that the hair lip will be more prone to personal grooming. You may have noticed mustached cowboys constantly fondling and striking their facial hair. Just survival of the fittest.

This continuing analogy applies to women’s feet and frequency of marriages. Observation: In the last forty years, the size of the average woman’s foot has grown two sizes. Women’s fashions used to lean toward sleek, pointed footwear. A graceful extension of the curvaceous calf, delicate ankle, and dainty foot.

Then women’s feet began to grow. Attempts to gird a size 11, triple A, in a bullet-shaped shoe led observers to imagine giraffes in giant elf shoes or Admiral Peary cross-country skiing the Arctic wasteland.

And the number of marriages per person has increased considerably in conjunction with increase in foot size. Obviously a direct result of the female of the species being easier to track.

But back to the horse’s tail. Its simplicity of design and utility of function has inspired many copycats in nature. Teenage girls wear their hair back in a ponytail and coordinate their swishing with gum-popping.

Not to mention the German shepherd, kite flying, or the landing parachute on the tail of a Russian bomber.

And every spring we see the ultimate adaptation of that equine appendage. Millions of new graduates standing in robes facing their futures, eyes glazed, palms sweating, and yet virtually fly-free thanks to the tassel. Wave on, eohippus. We are forever indebted.