[varmint]

When I was six or seven the neighbors had a Brahma bull. Terrifying animal. Would stalk me along the fence line as I walked to the school bus stop. Impossible to control, too expensive to kill. At some point it got out and killed a dog. That was enough.

The neighbor, my dad and some others herded it into a chute. One pulled out something that looked like bolt cutters. In a second it was over and he had a nose ring.

After that it was “yes sir, right away sir, anything you want as long as you don’t yank on that thing in my nose.”

I think of that every time I see someone with a nose ring.