24 July 2006

Runs With Carrots

Yesterday I was accused yet again of being a veritable font of useless information. This, when Mom and I spontaneously broke into "The Battle of New Orleans" at the dinner table.

The reason for this is that just as we sat down to the second course, Rocky from next door got out and was seen bolting past our house. Sadly, Rocky is not a poodle, or even a boxer, or for that matter a boxer whose last name is, in fact, Marciano. Rocky is a horse. A miniature horse, to be sure, but still nearly as tall as I and weighing a shitload more, as horses do. So, being me, I immediately kicked into mom's moccasins and ran to the fridge to get a bag of carrots and went to head him off at the pass, as Hedley Lamarr says.

The pass turned out to be the railroad tracks.

Actually, he was being a good little horsey and after his head-up, look-at-me, I'm-running, ha-ha, I'm-free-you-fuckers! was heading as fast as his little hooves could carry him back to Marciano's barn. Sadly, no one told him there were two layers of fence preventing that. So I cornered him down the embankment along the first layer of fence, where he looked like he was about to roll his eyes and charge at me, being of course the big bad stallion that he is (not), whereupon he promptly got a look on his face that said, "You have come equipped with those orange crunchy things!" And walked over to me calm as you please and stuck his horsey little head into the pocket of my shorts, where the bag was. So I grabbed his halter and walked him up and down and up and down and up and down, because there was no way he was standing for any of this holding still business, while the idiot stable hand who'd let him escape in the first place went to go get a lead. He also came back with Barbara, who looked at me and calmly said, "Oh good, finders keepers." Um, no. No thank you, Barbara. Really. But very funny.

So while they were discussing how best to get him back to Point A, Rocky and I looked at each other and said, "Really. Well, we got down here," and I held a carrot back behind me with one hand and the lead with the other (because I had tried this with no lead and the only thing that happened is Rocky stepped on the back of mom's shoe and I thought, "This could get ugly,") and the two of us tromped right on up the embankment and onto the railroad tracks, and then had a lovely stroll home again. I was sorely tempted to bring him to the back porch and say, "Mom, Barbara said I could keep him!" but then realised that Mom was in control of both my wine glass and my legal domicile at the moment.

How does this relate, you ask, to "The Battle of New Orleans"? Because mom asked where I went when I followed Rocky and how did I get him out. And after pointing out "the same way we got in there" we both said, "I ran through the briers and I ran through the brambles......." etc.

Dad was about to hide under the table.

The postscript to this is that after my run this morning (not chasing anything, thank you very much) when I went past the barn, Rocky stuck his head out of his stall and tried to stick his head down my running shorts, thinking I might have more of those orange crunchy things.

Ever been frisked by a horse, even a very short one?

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