I had lived my entire life in ignorance of the phenomenon of fainting goats until yesterday. Thank goodness, my sons were able to show me a youtube video in order to fill me in.
I have my suspicions that this is a situation like the videos of Slow Lorises being tickled. The goats involved don't seem particularly troubled, although I doubt that they find the problem all that funny.
After 90 seconds of extremely casual research, it seems that there is no actual fainting going on, just intense stiffening of the leg muscles when the goat 'experiences panic." Sounds fun, doesn't it? Obviously this condition, know as myotonia for those who need to know, would not work well in the wild, and has at least been enabled by domestication.
This fall semester I teach on Wednesdays, so the kids actually go three hours after school without my services as transporter, waiter, tutor, masseuse and personal assistant. Thus, I missed the genesis of their interest in fainting goats yesterday afternoon. I think it may have had something to do with a game titled "Goat Simulator" (a tagline; "You no longer have to fantasize about being a goat") but I cannot say for sure.
I am definitely not fantasizing about being this goat.
No comments:
Post a Comment