Can someone help us solve the mystery of the cows? We’ve missed them, but apparently there are ads in the New York subways that say, “The Cows Are Coming. May 12th,” according to an AdFreak reader who hoped that our “insider knowledge” could tell her why the cows were coming and why they’d picked May 12th to arrive. Sorry, though the breadth and depth of our insider knowledge is legendary, we really don’t know about this one. Said the reader, “I have tried to Google the slogan, the date, and everything I could think of to no avail. Does this make me obsessive and somewhat sad? Probably, but I don't care.” To help unravel the mystery, we’ve included a picture of a cow stress ball from the Office Playground site that our reader says looks a lot like the cow picture in the teaser ads. If you’ve got a clue about this, please write in so New Yorkers can prepare with mega-pooper-scoopers or whatever.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor