Who knew farm babies could be so tyrannical? 

The goats at the new Farm Babies exhibit at the Minnesota Zoo were sooooo not cute. On the glorious spring morning, Zoo patrons were welcomed into the goat pen to pet and feed the goats. But once inside the pen, my son and I were gang tackled by horned mammals. And they were everywhere: Up on tables, up on each other, and up in my pockets. The goats swarmed all around, poking at us with their wet snouts. It was cute for about four seconds. I was super annoyed when they rammed their noses into my hands that were inside my pants pockets. A few minutes later, I was violated by some perverted billy goat. It goosed my butt with two quick pokes. Yikes. Then I made a fatal mistake. I brought out my digital camera to take a picture of all the four legged madness. A larger white goat lunged at my hand because he thought my Canon PowerShot was food. He reared back and put hooves on my stomach. I shook him off. But as he descended, one of his hooves clipped my crotch. Let me tell you this: It’s all fun and games until a goat nicks one of your testicles.

My son really wanted to feed the goats, though. So I bought some goat food from a dispenser. I inserted my quarters, cranked the knob, and my hand filled with feed pebbles. A gang of goats heard the ratcheting of the dispenser and came running.  Five adult goats slobbered all over my hand, wrist, and forearm. Now, I have been many things in my life. But I have never been a trough. And it was disgusting. My son freaked out and we bolted.

On the outside of the pen, a goat lunged his head through a hole in the fence. It was searching for more food. We moved on. Murphy and I made our way back to the more docile exhibits of the Minnesota Zoo. We passed by a caravan of thirty families that were pushing their way down the path towards the Farm Babies exhibit. A huge tractor chugged by and it had a trailer filled with eager families ready for the goat pen. As we navigated through the Sturgis style stroller rally, I amazingly ran into my friend Gumbo and his wife and daughter. They sat on a secluded park bench and were completely exasperated by all the Farm Baby hysteria.

“Dudeface,” Gumbo said. We bumped knuckles. Gumbo pulled off his baseball cap, anxiously scratched at his hair, and stared off at the maddness. Ten more strollers passed by us, all steaming towards the Farm. “This place is a zoo.”

“Literally,” I quipped.