28 July 2012. The Horse Story.

A close friend of mine, Lily, recently posted this question on a social networking site:

Ok, FB Family: I think I'm ready to go horseback riding, after a hiatus of -- well too many years. Any suggestions???

Numerous people posted comments and suggestions about not falling off, not forgetting the saddle, and, always important, not dying. My first comment was, “Forget the horse. Ride a Harley.” I wrote that rather than make a fairly well-known reference regarding a Harley being the next best thing a woman can have between her legs not because I feared offending others, but rather because the mounting reference is both somewhat nasty as well as quite pedestrian.

While recollecting the interactions I’ve had with horses during my life, which are few (I liked horses a lot when I was a little girl, because I was a little girl), I remembered a road trip out west during which a friend and I puttered the trails atop equines. This is what I posted on my friend’s page (an FYI-- one of my nicknames is Doo, and I was recently struck by lightning):

Make sure your horse does not have digestive problems. I once rode a horse in Wyoming and he shit the entire trail. We had to hold up and wait for others to go past. This was not only because my horse did not trot, canter, or gallop, but rather stepped in pace with the release of fecal balls, which were, mind you, aplenty, but also because our scent was unlike the other horses and riders-- that rugged musky charm of stables and cowboys with frisky hints of lilac and livestock. No, my pony and I smelled of poo. We smelled of poo all damn day long. Putrid poo. I was tainted before I even saddled up. Yep. Damn straight. We were the Lonesome Riders: Drugstore Cowgirl Doo and her pony named Poo. And, may I be struck by lightning if that ain't the truth.

This anecdote elicited some laughter which prompted another comment from me even though I knew I should have stopped after the first and taken a nap. Sometimes in the course of conversation or interchange, I morph from seemingly a witty, quirky writer into someone deserving of much more therapy and maybe even 24-hour surveillance. This would be because I fail to recognize that I need to shut the hell up and cease writing nonsense. Without both internal filters and enough rest, my thoughts rush forth seemingly oblivious to the efforts from the first funny thoughts to stop them. Now and again I will faintly hear the ditty, “'Hark!’ the herald sane quips sing, ‘You’re unhinged. Don’t say a thing.’” My babbling tangents may bring about concerns that I am mentally unsound, but those who know me well know I’m just socially inept. I find that comforting in a restless way. Perhaps it’s what I deserve for unnerving others by being intensely laid-back. This was my follow-up comment:

I don't really care much for horses. I'm not afraid of them, but they creep me out when they get those wide shiny sociopath eyes and make that squealy neighing sound that causes blood to trickle from your every orifice. No living being should react that way in today's society. Nothing is THAT alarming. I say: Suck it up, horsie. And, stop scaring the bejesus out of everyone else.


It was then that all others stopped commenting. I closed that post like a boss.