I like horses just fine but sadly other than the fact that we smell the same, MANEly because both of our noses are hairy, I am not sure we have all that much in common. Don’t get me wrong, despite my shiny rhinestone personality and those manly tassels on my big boy bolo tie, I’m not really an urbane cowboy. No I’m tough as leather lingerie and truly know my way around chapped stuff since I rarely wear lip gloss and usually forget to wick away my ‘sweat-ness’ with a keg of baby powder.
My earliest memory of my own horse was one of those springy steeds that galloped in one place in the corner of my bedroom. I rode the thing until I got saddle sores but those were from my parents after I wouldn’t listen and tried to ride ‘ol squeaky secretly after bedtime. Years later when I thought to make friends with a real horse, it tired of my ‘barn-chair’ quarterbacking (like most in my family) and chased me down to punt my rump good. Other than my feelings, I was fine but after you get a tattoo from a horseshoe, you don’t view them quite as ‘lucky’ anymore.
On my 2nd date with the wife, we rode horseback along the craggy California oceanfront plateaus down to the surf when it was still legal to ride the waves with your gelding showing. Sadly the romance was lost upon my bridal to be as she was destined to follow my trusty rental equine ‘Amigo’. You didn’t need to understand any Spanish to know that this raised-tailed, gaseous giant was no FRIEND to any terrestrial body, except maybe a feed-bag of Beano or a flaccid hot air balloon.
The date was appropriately ‘cut’ short as THAT definitely WAS NOT love in the air. I jockeyed the half-ton hairy bag of methane back to the paddock, taking special care to steer clear of open flames and avoid spurring his girth unnecessarily. Though I feared a saddle slide to the side and unpleasant ride, I even loosened the cinch a pinch since I’m no cowboy-Grinch. Worthy of a Remington bronze, what a perfect Western scene that me and my putrid pony made – a fragrant pair of jack-asses; the big one listing left on his broke-back mount n’ the even bigger one misting a whiff off a cliff!
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