The Summer I Almost Flipped

The cable guy was supposed to show between 9 and 12, which in adult time meant anywhere between dawn and the apocalypse. I was technically "supervising" — my parents' way of saying I couldn't leave the house but could absolutely scroll TikTok in my room until the doorbell rang.

Except my brother's bull—yes, we live on enough property that this is a sentence I can say—had escaped his fence again. Because my brother was at band camp and my parents were at work, it fell to me to corral a 1,200-pound animal named Beefcake who was currently munching on my mom's prize hydrangeas like they were appetizers.

I grabbed the dog treats. Max, our chocolate lab, could herd anything. He'd once herded a confused toddler back to his mom at the park. "Max, situation," I said, pointing at the bovine intruder. Max looked at me, looked at Beefcake, then went back to sleep on the porch.

Then the cable van pulled up. The guy—maybe twenty, with a snapback and energy drink vibes—got out, saw the situation, and said, "Whoa. That's a lotta bull."

"Yeah," I said. "You here for the installation or to judge my life choices?"

He laughed, which somehow made it worse. "I can wait. Unless you need backup?"

The thing is, Beefcake was actually chill. My brother had raised him from a bottle after his mom rejected him. So Beefcake thought he was a large dog. He'd been caught trying to crawl through the dog door multiple times.

"Watch," I said, and whistled. Beefcake lifted his head, hydrangeas dangling from his mouth like a cartoon villain. I walked over, grabbed his halter (which he was wearing because my brother was responsible like that), and led him to his pen. Max finally woke up and trotted after us, looking like he'd helped.

"That was anticlimactic," Cable Guy said.

"That's my brand," I said, wiping dirt from my shorts. "You installing WiFi or what?"

"Nah, I'm just messing with you. Let's get you connected."

Three hours later, I had working internet, Max had made a new best friend, and Beefcake was back in his pen probably planning his next escape. Cable Guy—whose name was actually Marcus—high-fived me before pulling out of the driveway.

My parents came home to find me eating chips, watching Netflix, and explaining that no, the hydrangeas did NOT look that way when I woke up, and honestly, what did they expect, leaving a sixteen-year-old in charge of actual livestock?

"That's a load of bull," my dad said, but he was smiling.

I didn't correct him. Some stories are better left unexplained.