I was not aware until recently that farm animals were under such stress that they may need massage therapy. While I was in a farm supply store recently, I saw a small, hand-lettered sign which said, “Back Rubs: sows $600. cattle $850.”

This bears further investigation.

Is the staff of the local farm store operating an illegal massage parlor in the back room, where pigs and cows lie on padded tables while scantily clad masseurs stroke their heaving flanks with exotic scented oils?

Everyone knows that any massage parlors are thinly disguised cover-ups for illicit and immoral activities. Sure, livestock breeders SAY that they propagate the line by insemination, but do we really believe that?

This could be my ticket to the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism.

I plan to borrow my neighbor’s bull, Manuel, and pay a little visit to the farm supply store. I will hand the clerk a check and say, “Manuel is very lonely (wink, wink) and needs a back rub. Here is an extra fifty bucks.

“Manuel has a special fondness for voluptuous Holstein heifers and would really enjoy a happy ending if you get my drift.”

Little will they know that Manuel has been equipped with a hidden tape recorder and a mini-cam. When the film is developed, I am sure it will reveal a lavish livestock lounge, where farm animals in town for a convention are plied with expensive liquor and coerced into engaging in sinful activities.

We must rid our town of the vile sin of animal massage. We must wipe out this scourge before our town becomes a hotbed of corruption; the seedy underbelly of the animal kingdom.

I stormed into that farm supply store and gave him a piece of my mind.

“See here!” I shouted at the clerk. “I know about your secret room and its sinful activities! This has to stop! What’s next? Gambling casinos for poultry? Strip joints where sheep are sheared on stage to a sultry recording of “I Only Have Eyes for Ewe”? I am outraged! Why, I ought to turn you in to…what’s that? The back rub is just the name for a device that scratches the animal’s back, improving its health and its milk production? There is no massage parlor in the back room here?

“Oh. Never mind, then.