Michelle Woods - The Runaway Ram

 

 

It's 2008. I'm married to a shepherd and I'm living on a little island off the West Coast of Scotland. It's staggeringly beautiful. Only one problem is the locals. I was under a lot of pressure to fit in, and be accepted and not seen as some Irish-Aussie blowing. But I digress. I had a very important job to do that day. My husband was away on the mainland at the dentist, and I had one job to do that day. 

 

We'd managed to flog frowick our rampaging ram for the princely sum of 300 quid to Donald MacDonald on the neighboring island. [audience laughter] It’s true. It's all true. All I had to do was just hand over frowick. He'd be contained in his little frank in the front garden and I had to hand over the ram, take the money. What could possibly go wrong? So, flushed with confidence, popped down the village to buy a pint of milk to go with the scones I'd made to impress Donald with my croft wife skills. 

 

As I pulled into the top of the driveway, just taking in the scene, my heart stopped, what did I see but frowick gambling. Yes, gambling like a spring lamb in the huge front [unintelligible 00:18:31] instead of safely contained in the little [unintelligible 00:18:34] in the little front garden already for Donald MacDonald. 30 minutes I had, so I sped down the driveway, ditched the car, ran into the bar, grabbed a bucket of feed. 

 

Now, if there's one thing frowick cannot resist, it's molasses covered nuts. [audience laughter] He will flatten anyone and anything to get to those nuts, including me. So, I thought, no, no, big time to just knuckle under. You can do this. You can do this. So, my evil plan is to scatter like Hansel and Gretel, a little trail of sheep nuts from the big field, through the little cottage gate into the little cottage garden, where then Donald McDonald and I will be able to catch him a bit easier. I thought, this is going to happen. Scattered the nuts. And then, I opened the gate and I squatted down behind the gate to hide and I left the bucket there. My cunning plan was have him munch his way up, come through the gate, once the head's in the bucket, I’ll kick the gate shut and there we'll be. 

 

So, I'm crouched behind the gate. I'm thinking, I'm university educated. This dumb ram's no match for me. [audience laughter] I'll show these villagers, and yeah, hear him crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. He's just about to come through the gate when I happen to glance up to my right, and I notice I've left the big gate open that goes up the driveway and down to the village. Change of plan, I kick the gate shut and slam, and suddenly frowick looks up and realizes there's now a gate between him and the hallowed big bucket of nuts. He's raging. He starts scraping the ground with his hoof. I think I can see steam coming out of his nostrils. I fancy I can hear him say, “Well, girly girl, you think you're going to take me on?” 

 

I get up off my knees to go walk to shut the big gate, and I think, Christ, I've got to get to the mainland more often. As I turn round to saunter to the gate, out of the corner of my eye, that's when I see him launch his hundred-kilogram carcass over the gate and over me. [audience laughter] It all happens in slow motion. First of all, the little hairy front hoofs go past my ears. [audience laughter] And then, he's all oily undercarriage [audience laughter] through my hair. And then, the sun is blotted out [audience laughter] as these two enormous balls come towards it, but I whip my face to the side like that. 

 

And then, reflexively, I grab onto those two rapidly disappearing ankles. [audience laughter] I don't know why, but I just did the pressure. [audience laughter] And then, whoomph, we cut back to real time and slap. [audience laughter] I did that on purpose. [audience applause]

 

We land on the front lawn. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when he starts to run. He starts running, and I'm being towed behind like a rag doll. [audience laughter] He takes me over grassy tussocks, rabbit holes, scattered sheep shit, you name it, he does it. And I think, I'm not letting go. [audience laughter] And that's when I see the gravel drive come into vision. And I realize I'm about to have a very permanent, very painful breast reduction. [audience laughter] 

 

As I'm trying to lift myself up, I glance under my armpit, I look out across the sound and I see a little orange boat going by. And it can only mean one damning thing. It is the orange rubber speedboat of Donald MacDonald zipping down the sound. Meaning, he'll be up on the borough quad bike and trailer to collect his ram in five minutes. I'm just beside myself. I've got to do something. And that's when all my film watching comes back to me and saves me. I have a flash of Crocodile Dundee's seminal death roll with that crocodile. And I go, “Well.” And so, I fling myself to the right, and we roll over and over and over, like I saw him do to that crocodile. 

 

The look on frowick’s face is priceless. The little shit is winded, and it's the only gap I need. [audience laughter] So, I leap on him, straddle him, pin him down on the ground by his horns. I look into his roomy yellow eyes and I go, “I may only be an incomer, but you today, frowick, you're an outgoer.” [audience laughter] At that precise moment in buzzes Donald McDonald on his quad bike, And I look up and go, “Hello, Donald, you're here. I thought I'd just get frowick out the fang for you, so we'd have time to go in for a cuppa and some scones before you head back.”