At Harvard, though, this kind of common sense is never enough; you have to have academic credentials before anyone takes you seriously. So I interviewed a couple of professors of dairy science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University to get the scholarly perspective on cow-tipping.

According to Professor Ray Nebel, the average weight of a mature dairy cow is 1250 to 1300 pounds, more than your average "friend" could move. "A four-legged animal is pretty stable," he said. "Have you ever tried to push over a dog?"

My faith was redoubled. But my mission of convincing the Harvard community to discard the myth of cow-tipping was still a failure.

Just before despair set in, I heard of another student on the same quest. John Sparks '91, of Sulfur, Okla., also sees red when he hears anyone mention the subject. "Everybody's got a buddy who's done it, but nobody ever does it," said Sparks.

Sparks, who was raised on a ranch, first heard of cow-tipping at Harvard. He, too, wrestled with self-doubt. "I asked my daddy and a couple of the other ranchers about it," he said. "They thought I was talking about something sexual."

I asked him to speculate on the theoretical possibility of tipping a cow.

"That's like trying to push over a Volkswagen," he said. "I had a cow step on my foot one time, and I pushed and pushed, but she wouldn't budge."

And Sparks, unlike me, has no insecurities about physical strength. A starting defensive lineman for the Harvard Football team, he is a 6'5," 250-pound monolith who tosses around bulky fullbacks as if they were children.

If Sparks can't tip a cow, no number of drunken suburban weenies have a chance.

I've considered following the example of people who debunk claims of the supernatural by offering huge cash rewards to anyone who can produce positive evidence of suspicious phenomena.

In fact, I know the appropriate reward for anyone who will call me and claim to have tipped a cow. But the reward doesn't come in stacks of hundreds.

It comes in piles.