Woman Dressed as Cow Gets a Month in Jail

32-year-old Michele Allen received a one-month sentence for disorderly conduct after police received complaints that she was dressed in a cow costume and chasing children, blocking traffic, and urinating on a neighbor's porch.

She wore the costume again when she appeared for sentencing. One Month in Corral for Disorderly Woman

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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99centmenu

I can see it now. Tyler Perry’s “Diary of a Mad Cow Woman.”
Mark Frauenfelder

I heard a fly flew into one ear and out da udder.
sylkworm

Making of the mentally ill is short-hand for COOL!!
Phikus

Udderly unacceptable behavior.
MichaelRN

These comments are really Low. Needs more cowbell?
Talia

#80

Because you have a choice about what you wear. Wearing something ludicrious invites ridicule. Skin is just what you’re born with.

Terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE, comparison. Most illogical, as Spock would say.

Sorry, you’re reasoning is pretty flawed there bub.

Also, Did you not read Xeni’s comment above?

‘(to those emailing: omg that was a fleeting internet joke about 4chan haters and comment trolls who use this phrase.”

Joke, dude. Don’t be so uptight. :) Yes, its strong language, but the intent was satirical.
jahknow

Furfags gone wild? I just hope she gets out in time to vote this November….

PS: I think it’s creepy how this local radio station’s web site crime blotter articles such as this one have the street addresses of the crime locations hyperlinked to online maps (e.g., “3100 block of Wilbraham Road“). And Mapquest? How 1999. Couldn’t they have used teh Google Maps, maybe even with a Street View pic of mad cow lady?
DogStarMan

Hey! My hometown finally made it onto Boing Boing! Yipeee!
Phikus

How do I know all of this about her? I herd it through the bo-vine.
Keneke

in after…everything epic. Fail.

(How’s that for 4-chan-ese)
Phikus

MICHAELRN@17: We’ve only grazed her so far.
Luther Blisset

Oh well. Even cowgirls get the blues…
minTphresh

udderly rediculous? no! the breast costume EVAR!
Daemon

I would have gone with the Performance Artist defense, and gotten a grant.
Tavie

Anyone reading too much into these comments should just bypass this sort of post entirely, elsie be offended further.
Frank_in_Virginia

I’m thinking this is a sorority pledge ritual. Is it rush week somewhere?
Mindpowered

Oh this is tawdry.

From the same page.

“Police have charged an 18-year-old man with corrputing a minor after witnesses reported seeing him and an underage girl engaged in a sex act behind a church.”
Biscuit4

“the aristocrats” Funny ROBATSGH. Still don’t think we should joke about this lady/girl. She’s obviosly ineed of a good lawyer. There are too many of the mentally ill incarcerated.
Phikus

People were quick to take a fence to her actions.
Phikus

Where’s COWICIDE when we need him?
Antinous

Cube,

If you could just find a less offensive way to say that you find something offensive….
minTphresh

you know, biscuit4, i whole heartedly agree with you. but, you gotta admit, that is some funny stuff there.
Mindpowered

Jesus Christ what’s wrong with you people!

From the same place.

“A former worker at the Hamilton County Morgue who has admitted to raping the body of a murder victim in 1982, will spend the next three years in prison.”

“West Chester Township caregiver is accused of beating her 74-year-old charge, in an attempt to punish her for having sex with “evil spirits”.”

“She was villified, but never charged. And now she’s going on Oprah Winfrey’s show to tell her side of the story. Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby went to work on the morning of August 23, 2007, and forgot her 2-year-old daughter was asleep in the backseat. When Slaby came out, Cecilia was dead.”
Various Cool dot Com

Dear America,

Michelle Allen was arrested yesterday. Why? Because she ALLEGEDLY blocked traffic and was chasing children around. Come on! Sheâ€™s just having fun. Oh, but if it was Halloween, then everything would be hunky dory, huh?

Granted, she did piss on her neighborâ€™s porch(OK, you got me there)but at least it wasnâ€™t a #2.

USA, can you loosen up a bit? ;)

Cordially,

Oscar
Phikus

I’m offended that, instead of throwing money into paying fines to her local municipality, she didn’t just hand out bills to everyone. After all, America always loves a good cash cow.
minTphresh

phikus WINS THE INTERWEBZ! for his re-butt-al @71.
minTphresh

#122 bisquit4, sorry, must be somthin wrong with the phresh one. two straight days of out loud giggling from one magical thread…. show me yer monkey! and HATOFEDSHU#106, wasn’t the cayahoga river fire ( where the river was so polluted that it actually caught fire) somewhere in OhiO?
Stumpadoodle

Police sure are COWardly today.

Herp derp.
ThreeFJeff

I would just like to say, geez, WCC, sacred cow, much? I took that as Xeni making fun of 4chan and not furries.

Please return to milking the cow puns relentlessly.
Sekino

“A former worker at the Hamilton County Morgue who has admitted to raping the body of a murder victim in 1982, will spend the next three years in prison.”

“West Chester Township caregiver is accused of beating her 74-year-old charge, in an attempt to punish her for having sex with “evil spirits”.”

“She was villified, but never charged. And now she’s going on Oprah Winfrey’s show to tell her side of the story. Brenda Nesselroad-Slaby went to work on the morning of August 23, 2007, and forgot her 2-year-old daughter was asleep in the backseat. When Slaby came out, Cecilia was dead.”

Anyone wants to dress up as a unicorn?
hassan-i-sabbah

Weightedcompani….. Thank Eris someone has stood up to this terrible slur on a much maligned sector of society.Stupid skinnys.You should be proud of your actions today.In years to come this day will be celebrated as the day someone stood up to the evil Xeni and the bullies of bOING bOING!
seriously tho, I’m working in the animal shelter this month,and to come home and see you get yer panties and wad over this,well, it beggars belief.Choose your targets. There are many,many things in this world that are evil bad and and deeply fucked up.This is not one of them.
Phikus

Hey MINDPOWERED, what’s your beef with us? Are you wearing your Wranglers too tight? So what if we want to horn in on this woman’s mis-steaks instead of chewing the daily feed. Don’t chap our hide for it, dude!
SamF

Police were eventually able to corrall her.

When asked to comment, her coworkers at the dairy plant said “Bessie was always very docile. She’d never herd anyone.”

Her recent stampede may have been related to a comment from her boss who told her “We can’t look pasture recent performance. We have a brand to consider.”

When asked what her current plans were, her lawyer responded that she planned to change her name to Patty and consider an offer from McDonalds.
Gary61

She’s got a lot at steak.
Talia

This is clearly a gross mooscarriage of justice.
Phikus

Yay! I always wanted some INTERWEBZ!
ZippySpincycle

Would I be a dirty socialist if I suggested that she needs mental health care more than she needs jail time?

Obligatory Pun: Her tell-all memoir will be titled “Dairy of a Madwoman”
MichaelRN

I, for one, am not a-moo-sed by the direction this thread is going. Cud it out!
Zombie

You simply must admire the dedication.
jimh

She wore the costume to the sentencing?
I’ll bet there was a commotion, and the judge yelled “udder in the court!” Just my 2%.
Jane Kansas

To err is human; to moo is bovine.
gornzilla

Is it rape if it’s a corpse? I mean, I understand locking you up for having sex with a dead person, but is rape the right legal word?
Talia

#36 technically it would be abuse of a corpse I believe.
Phikus

GORNZILLA: Necrophilia is the word. You can’t cow-erce a corpse.
skogs34

And ewe ain’t herd the hoof of it!
mdh

She should have gone to work that day, she’s usually outstanding in her field.
dccarles

As a consolation to Ms. Allen, I offer this poem, originally composed by Gary Larson.

“The distant hills call to me.
Their rolling waves seduce my heart.
Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys,
Oh, how I want to run down their green slopes,
Alas, I cannot.

Damn the electric fence!
Damn the electric fence!”

–Devin
Anonymous

Wow, only one moonth jail time?
Mindpowered

@ 29 My bad.

I was yelling at the fine burghers of Cincinnati and environs, for being such COW -ards.

Someone should widget up a rimshot app.

Really.
A New Challenger

Thread needs more CP.

(Cow Puns)
Xeni Jardin

EPIC PUN THREAD
Antinous

You all just need to be more kine to her.
Frank_in_Virginia

Maybe she thinks she is a Gateway Computer.
jimh

She was blocking traffic? Why didn’t they just steer around her? I don’t this is the whole story, but I only skim articles like this one.
Anonymous

Does her milkshake bring all the boys to the yard?
Antinous

Cow Puns

Technically, that would be paronomoosia.
dbarak

Oh for teat’s sake people, this isn’t news.
jimh

@JIMH #98: hastily typed joke = Fail.
Anonymous

Hauled off to the hoose-cow?
anthony

Yes. We should all try to be less jerky.
mokey

#106: eris works overtime in ohio, in mysterious ways.
anthony

I mean, a little harmless ribbing is to be expected, but let’s not skirt the issue when tenderness is needed.
There’s no need to grill someone or rake them over the coals when what we should be doing is chewing the fat.
Takuan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKib6XKJNJQ
Operative

I wonder if the police report identifies her as an Angus American?
Fabricationist

Limericks anyone?

There once was a woman named Michele,
Who dressed as a cow, with a bell.
She was utterly mad, chasing kids, which is bad,
And got locked in a tiny jail cell.
Xeni Jardin

@WCC: WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE /b/tards
mdh

Wearing the suit to court confirmed the diagnosis:

Hoof in Mouth *

* – actually people, lets be glad she got noticed and nobody got hurt. Boo System! Yay System!
Headbone

Cows and effect, what did she expect? I wonder what would have happened if she was in India? They’d have let her off easy, or burned her at the steak.

…Ok, so if the furfag comment’s taken in context, someone should defend the calloused, insensitive attack on the poor /b/tards.
Attacking a whole sub-section of people just ’cause they’re assholes is discriminationismistic too.
Anonymous

After a disastrous performance on American Idol, a cowed performer had a cow. In an effort to disparage Simon Cowellâ€™s name, she took to the streets in disquise. Allenâ€™s performance was well researched. While Cowellâ€™s saccharin swooning over little British children is well-publicized, he more often chases them through the street, leaving puddles of incontinence in his wake. Were it not for the Holstein attire, Michele Allenâ€™s ruse might have gone unnoticed. Cowell, however, is a Guernsey, from the British cow dependency. Moreover, Cowell has singular udder definition that Allen could not replicate.
jimh

Yeah, what’s with all the hostile comments? I thought that this post would lack prose intolerance.
tp1024

I guess that’s how you manage to put 1% of your population in jail …
Axx

I really find this kind of public conduct unBEARable.

What?
HatOfEdshu

Why, oh why does it always have to happen in Ohio!?!!

Creation Museum
Jeffrey Dahmer
Cuyahoga River
Bob Taft
Diebold and their electronic voting machines
Jerry Springer
Cowgirl

How many embarrassments can you remember?

Hillary Clinton said, “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.” Let’s hope she didn’t mean it…
Bek

I just *had* to click the comments section. Just *had* to find out why an article about a woman dressed as a cow had 103 comments.

Oh, how I regret my decision.
querent

I wanna make a pun, too, but I just know I would bUNGUL-ATE.
WeightedCompanionCube

Xeni – yeah, I get the joke, but you know what else is ‘funny’ on 4chan? Racism! S why dn’t y jst dd “Brn n hll, n*****” whl y’r t t?
anthony

Well, that sometimes happens when you horn into a conversation, BEK; you don’t always like what you herd. None of those commenting here have been vetted in any way, and so the remarks can seem raw and unpasteurized, even cheesy.
pork musket

These comments are making me veal ill.
dbarak

I lived in Ohio for about seven years, and I wasn’t sure where Middletown is (south, near Cincinnati). I can tell you that in Columbus, where I lived, this kind of thing was highly frowned upon.
Talia

The lady is just a bit mooseguided. She needs someone to steer her in the right direction.

and aw come now #50, we’re in the middle of a friendly punoff here. :)
OM

…How long do you think it’ll be before she’s on all the talk shoes milking this stunt for all it’s got?

…As for the 4chan bozos…ah, let’em eat Chik-Fil-A leftovers.
Talia

Hmm, how’d that spare E get in there. It’s a myster E.
St_Stevie

The courts should go easy on her, there’s no point in crying over spilt urine.
Doujoux

Interesting way to proactively innoculate the comments against potential /b/ull and hating on furries, Xeni. :)
Gary61

She simply doesn’t know leather to quit while she’s a head.
mdh

Blocking traffic is typical for a cow, but chasing the children? That’s a spotty performance.
JArmstrong

Does anybody else notice that a disproportionate number of these “crazy people” stories (like the pregnant woman smoking the cigarette worried that the construction noise would harm her fetus) come from the Cincinnati area?
ill lich

I’d urinate on a neighbor’s porch too if I had beef with them.
ScottyD

#50 – WCC: How is that in any way a valid comparison?
mappo

You people are disgusting. This woman is obviously mentally ill and needs help, not incarceration. If we as a society provided proper veterinary assistance to all that need it, regardless of income, this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.
MichaelRN

Fabricationist,

I’ll see your limerick and raise you an iambic pentameter:

One woman dressed in cow-hide was detained,
By officers sworn to the Law protect,
When local kids she chased and blocked the lane,
And peed upon the neighbor’s frontmost step.
Phikus

Touching, Takuan. *wipes away tear*
Talia

Geez Mappo, don’t have a cow
dbarak

#61 posted by mappo,

That was the best one yet, by far! In the immortal words of Cosmo Kramer, “I’m out!”
Biscuit4

I can’t exactly look at that mug shot and not grinn MINTPHRESH.

You are correct, but it’s still like laughing at a monkeyy for being hairy. Not cool.
WeightedCompanionCube

talia – yeah, we are now, but Xeni really kind of kicked things off on what seemed like a jumbo cowpie o’ hate. Vowels have been lost over less, ya know.

I know all about the lulz that are /b/ on Fridays, but I won’t go near it with a 10 foot prosthesis. I don’t need to see any more pictures of real animals being tortured to death.
Xeni Jardin

Yiff in hell, furfags.
devophill

Yff n hll, frfgs?
- Xeni Jardin
  
  (to those emailing: omg that was a fleeting internet joke about 4chan haters and comment trolls who use this phrase. i r not srs. this woman is not a member of the furry fandom, per se; she is a disturbed person wearing a cow costume who pees in public and frightens kids.)
OM

…Ok, all you older limeys, all together now:

SILLY MOO!

[/alf_garnett]
Enochrewt

#50: Comparing making fun of furries to racism? You jest surely.

Furries are designed to be made fun of.

#61: Not everything is a social cause, and not everyone is able to be “fixed”. Even if she does need help (and she does) People not making bad puns isn’t going help her. There will be a lot more conditions to her incarceration than just “sit in jail”. Counseling sessions are usually thrown in there, and I’d bet there is a psych eval required. I’m sure it’ll be found that she’s “cowshit insane”.

So lighten up, much like ol’ #50 above, you can’t crusade for every cause.
isaacd

I’ve got calf a mind to heffer cowmmitted instead of grilling her on her odd Jersey choice. The pen would make her steer-crazy I dair(y) to guess.

Ayrshire glad I such a pun cowtlet today.

:)
Frank_in_Virginia

Here is her full-length mug shot. (Check out the udders.)

And more on the arrest.
WeightedCompanionCube

scottyd – easy: she’s wearing a cow suit, so joking remarks about alternative lifestyles are fair game! If that’s the case, why don’t we just make jokes about her race? Skin, suit, what’s the difference?

I get that Xeni was making a joke, but it was a hateful one. Tossing ‘anything-fag’ around is like tossing around a racial/ethinic/religious slur.

Especially for an author and/or mod. Authority figures should have higher standards and all that.
Talia

#66 you can’t moosade for every cowse.

fixed that for you
jimh

From now on she’d butter straighten up and fly right.
WeightedCompanionCube

Enochrewt – You’re wrong, and that’s awful damn hypocritical…

…but it wasn’t the “fur” so much as the “fag” that make me almost hose down my monitor with soda. I didn’t imagine Xeni would drop that one, even in a joke.
WeightedCompanionCube

Antinous – I figure enough people had already said that to Xeni in sidebar. I was angry, I ranted. I apologize.

Talia, etc..

My, er, beef, isn’t with Xeni at this point, it’s with those who think there’s no comparison between a racial slur and a lifestyle slur.

I said it before: a woman in a cow suit IS funny. An inexplicably nasty comment directed towards “furfags” is just, well, inexplicable. But Xeni explained it, and I’m not trying to milk a further apology.

I’m arguing those who are telling me “it’s ok to make fun of furfags because it’s their choice”

Really, it was the use of the term “furFAG”, even if a joke, that irked me. You can find plenty of hate sites on the internet that are full of racial/ethnic/sexual slurs, but is it acceptable to make a joke using those things here? Well, “fag” is the same thing in this context: a slug against homosexuality, which to quote you, “is just what you’re born with.”
Phikus

Disparaging comments here are complete bull! Don’t try to cow-opt this thread for your own turf. You cannot out-manure us. It’s the pot calling the cattle black, I say, but I wouldn’t put it pasture to try again. Why not say something nice to heifer out, or is that too far out of your range? Try to roundup the mooxy to meat us on the same plain, or Elsie! Cowards!
Talia

#68

“scottyd – easy: she’s wearing a cow suit, so joking remarks about alternative lifestyles are fair game! If that’s the case, why don’t we just make jokes about her race? Skin, suit, what’s the difference?”

….

That’s not a serious statement, is it? I hope?
mappo

@Enochrewt: that faint whooshing sound you hear is a joke passing far, far above your head.
Engine Here

A Haiku:

Incarcerated
A Holstein suited Mad Cow
Porch pissing is bad
Maddy

I’m sure at the time it all made perfect sense
RobAtSGH

“police received complaints that she was dressed in a cow costume and chasing children, blocking traffic, and urinating on a neighbor’s porch.”

ummmm… the aristocrats?
Mark Celsor

I guessed it was probably going to be another Cincinnati area story before I clicked through. Sigh.
Anonymous

She’s Bessie the Heifer, the queen of all the cows
She gives more milk than any law allows
In the mornin’ she gives pasteurized
At night she gives ho-mog-enized
Bessie the Heifer is queen of all the cows!

(with apologies to Little Jimmy Dickens)
flyingdutchman

#106 posted by HatOfEdshu , September 30, 2008 4:58 PM

“Why, oh why does it always have to happen in Ohio!?!!”

You forgot Kent State.
Engine Here

A Haiku, by Michele Allen.

I feel like moo-ing
What disorderly conduct?
I will chase your young
Engine Here

“Mad Cow disease hits United States.”
Talia

#112: I think the point is the statement was done in mockery of the original intent. It was a very specific satirical comment.

The context of the statement really had nothing to do with the “fag” part at all. It was making fun of /b/tards. If anyone they’re the ones you should rail against, hell homophobia and racism is par for the course over there.

Its about context. This was satire. Consider the target. :)
ill lich

I’m guessing she has mad cow disease.

(perhaps the most obvious joke to make here.)
Enochrewt

#75:Ugh, “veterinary” would have been a good tip huh?
nanuq

I’m going with mooed disorder. Either that or lactose intolerance.
karenbcrazy

These comments are awesome, but I think they will have ruined me for the day. I just saw something about Moscow on another website and immediately thought “Moocow”.

I love and hate you all at the same time. :)
WeightedCompanionCube

Talia – yes, it is a serious statement. I don’t see why you find it so incredible. So I’m going to probably write a lot more than I wanted to about it:

If you want to make all sorts of puns about a nutty woman in a cow suit, fine. That’s really funny.

If you are going to use the subject of a woman in a cow suit to say something off-hand and really hateful about an entire group, even as a joke, does it really matter what aspect of the subject you made fun of?

I used race simply because everyone is sensitive to racism, but I could have just as easily picked her gender. Then again, not everyone recognizes sexism. Or sexual discrimination. Or general opportunistic prejudice.

I think that fact that you (and others) see a big difference between this and racism shows just how shallow a lot of people’s “tolerance” really is.

Or to put it another way, what makes blatant racism worse than insulting a fringe lifestyle? The status quo?

This BBtv post had some seriously hateful comments that got zapped pretty quickly. Except… then you have Xeni saying the same ugly stuff in jest? That’s exactly like moderating racism and then making a racist joke. It’s a different kind of intolerance, but it’s still hypocracy.
OM

…On the other hand, considering how most of the furry types are around here, that gal in the cow suit would have fit right in.
SamF

The article says that they smelled alcohol on her the second time.

Apparently, she was cow-tipsy.
insomma

(Sigh) Incowceration isn’t the answer.
Phikus

She’s really trying to milk that costume for all its worth.
McChud

yeah, she was urinating on my porch once too. i told her to cud it out.
Santa’s Knee

Got MLK?
Phikus

I don’t know, it just behooved her to do it at the time.
ernie

Chick-fil-a viral ad?