Out in the boondocks we had cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens and just about anything you could think of. Of course having all these critters meant you had fences, fences to keep them where they belonged or out of where they didn’t belong. 

                We had build lots of fence in our time, course you could always tell if it was something Max and I  did as it was, according to my dad, ‘as crooked as a dogs hind leg’, whatever that meant. 

                Max’s cousin, Bubba, short for Dick, don’t ask me to explain it, I can’t, had moved to the boondocks just lately so we had one more person to have adventures, ‘according to our mom’s get in trouble’, with. I don’t know what they were talking about, we were just three red blooded free ranging all American Wyomingite boys. 

                During this period in our lives, building fence, there was a new invention that came out, electric fence. It was the newest and greatest thing ever to keep stuff where it was suppose to be. Sometimes I think it was something that was invented to keep us out of where we should have been.

                Bubba’s dad put up the first new fangled electric fence on the creek. He had put it around the garden, and I am sure it was to keep us out. We were headed out to the garden for a afternoon snack when we discovered it. We had not heard of it before or ever seen one. It looked like just a wire running around the garden. 

                I reached out to climb over and grabbed the wire.   WAHOOO, that fence bit me and knocked my butt to the ground, I jerked my hand back shaking it, “Ow” I said, “that smarts”, like I had any.        

                Now I had had a little experience with electric from welding the bucking barrels. So being the genius that I was, one of the three geniuses standing around, I told the other two that if we got the fence wet it would shut it down. 

                Now Max being the genius that he was came up with the idea of peeing on the fence. I looked at Bubba, he looked at me, and we both shrugged our shoulders and said it sounded like a good idea. I mean why wouldn’t it; we were all geniuses weren’t we?

                So Max proceeds to pee on the fence. 

                The blood curling scream that came from him permanently gave me goose bumps and it was a week before I could keep my hair from standing straight up. I shut my eyes to keep from laughing, it didn’t help.

                When I opened my eyes Max was still peeing on fence and he was yelling and jumping around like a flea in a skillet. I shut my eyes again and when I looked again he was still bouncing up and down like a jack hammer. I mean he was dancing all over the place and no matter how much he danced or bounced up and down that fence was not letting go of him. He was trapped like a mouse in a trap, like he was super glued to that fence.   He kept bouncing and screaming, screaming and bouncing. After what seemed like forever, he finally ran dry and the fence let go of him, I swear I heard that fence giggle when it let go, and he fell to the ground looking like a sunburned dried up old raisin. 

                Bubba and I were laughing so hard we didn’t notice when he fell down, that is till he got up with murder in his eye and our names on his lips. We took one look at him and took off for parts unknown, just managing to stay one step ahead of him. Fortunately he ran out of stream pretty quick, thanks to the fence, and we all sat down laughing. Max even managed to say, “Ok now you guys try it out. Man what a rush, you really got a try it.”

                Bubba and I looked at each other, thought about it for a minute, one second, and said in unison “Na”.   We may not have been the brightest rocks in the box, see what I mean, but we just didn’t think that peeing on something electric ranked up there with our brighter ideas. Maybe next time.