Horse Sense

Dominion over the animals huh?

       I’m certain that we have all read or heard about how many of us humans who are alleged to be smarter than the animals choose stupidly to torment animals. We’ve heard about the man who while inebriated decided to play catch … with a rattlesnake. Or the young fellows who decided that it might be fun to slingshot the tigers at the San Francisco Zoo. Have you seen the YouTube video about the African park ranger who was trying to release a leopard who was not quite ready to get out of the ranger’s truck? The ranger decided that the best way to encourage the annoyed leopard was to roll down his window … all the way … and reach back and poke the cat with a stick. Then there was the alleged “bear expert” who believed that he could set up camp in the midst of one of the most dense concentrations of brown bears in the United States and mitigate their "bear nature" by talking nice to the bears. He ended up as a hot lunch for one of the bears.

       I thought I would take a moment to contribute a story about three fellows I know who displayed the same stellar judgment while dealing with animals, but were more fortunate with their outcome. We’ll call these three titans of intellect Ace, Deano and Wheatie. Let me take a moment to state that my three friends have grown up to be very smart fellows and fine upstanding contributors to society. But I digress. This is not about how wonderfully well they turned out, but about how they started out with such tragically poor reasoning skills. Although I got the story second hand, I got the same second hand story from three of the four principles. I was unable to get the horse’s account of the story.

       “Horse?” you ask.

       Let me start from the beginning. Apparently, there was a pasture, which this particular horse was known to frequent that my three friends often passed in their travels back and forth to one another’s homes. There was also a small orchard of apple trees near the pasture and it would seem that my teenage friends could never resist the temptation to torment Mister Horse by hurling apples at him. On one cool morning, full of mischief, they stopped at the orchard and filled their jacket pockets with little green apples and began target practice with Mister Horse. The horse, as he usually did, backed away from the side of the pasture from which the projectiles were originating. But my friends were not about to be outsmarted by a stupid animal. They refilled their pockets, ducked under the barbed wire fence and moved ten yards closer. Their fruity mortars once again found their range. The horse backed up another twenty yards, obviously thinking … closer ... closer. Larry, Moe and Curly obliged by moving twenty yards closer to the horse and the center of the pasture. After one more pair of matching position changes, the horse reared up and sounded the charge. After about a half second of standing in stunned silence, it registered that:

 

·        They were in the center of the pasture some fifty yards from the safety of the barbed wire fence.

·        They had been outwitted by a “stupid animal”

·        And lastly, the stupid animal was much faster than they were.

 

       I can only imagine what went through what I charitably refer to as the brains of my friends as they scrambled for the fence line. But after their narrow escape, they did all share with me the lessons that they learned that day.

 1.   You don’t need to be faster than the horse, just faster than one of your friends.

2.   Prepare properly for your activities. Work boots are not ideal for racing a horse, regardless of how much of a head start he gives you.

3.   And lastly, horses bite when annoyed and they have absolutely no compunction about taking a back pocket (and however much flesh comes along) from a pair of Levis.

 

       In closing I must give them credit for having learned (sort of). Though I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you that they never threw apples at the horse again, I can say that they were never again lured inside of the fence line by Mister Horse.

Reviews

[Doreen]

This gives a little insight on 'horse sense'. Lure the silly, small humans unwittingly to retribution. Hehe. And some think humans are smarter than animals....Great story. Though I feel very bad for the poor horse, it's a comfort to know that it got the last word. :)

[Emily Quinn]

haha, I loved this satire, its amazing what little events with our self supplied entertainment can lead to and the humour and pure joy it brings to others! i suppose it's very possible to writes hillarious satires such as this one for every event/adventure we embark on through our lives. ahhh, this was funny, good job and thanks for winning... er.. entering my contest

[R. L. Aversa]

Haha, its great when the animals get revenge.

[just rose.]

The tone in this is absolutely awesome. I felt like you were telling the story in person. Great job.

[Emily B]

I have a stupid Emily story that concerns a horse . . . but I was six . . . my reasoning skills were a little lacking

[Ferg]

Great story Creepy! The writing is very good! Flows very well and pulls the reader along nicely. No stutters or hiccups anywhwere :)
What's the saying "stupid is as stupid does"?.......I found myself cheering for the horse!
Nice job on this story!

P.S. One of these brainiacs isn't your financial advisor, is it?? LOL

[Ed Hart]

some of us are terminally stupid, some of us survivors are lucky enough to be just injured stupid, but all of us are stupid as long as we have things to learn. This, from old stupid Ed.