Equine Sorrow

Random: Have you ever stopped to think about how shitty horses have it in life?  I might think about that more often than PETA's most ardent activist.  I feel so bad for them.  Here's why:


1) You know how it feels to wear your backpack all day?  Your back gets tired, and maybe a little sore.  Ok, well imagine you have a fucking human being on your back all day.  Yeah, horses weigh way more than humans do, but still.  If you're a 900 lb. horse with a 150 lb. man on your back (which is a conservative estimate, as most men are heavier than that), you're still carrying around 1/6 of your body weight.  And you might have to gallop, or jump around, with 1/6 of your own body weight on your back.  I weigh about 140; I would not want to run around and do tricks while carrying 23 lbs.   After about the first ten minutes hour, I'd probably be struggling.

2) You get your own choice of footwear--horses don't.  At a young age, they have hard metal horseshoes that are nailed into the surface of their hooves.  They don't get to kick off their shoes when they get home after a hard day's work.  Their shoes stay on until they outgrow them, at which point they get new shoes hammered in.  Although this area is said to be insensitive (it has been compared to a human toenail), I'm sure that the process likely a little uncomfortable, even if it's not painful.  Can you imagine getting something heavy put through your toenail?  Yeah, that would suck.

3) Wanna rest?  Too bad, horse.  You have to do your master's bidding.  If you start to slow down, you're a slacker and you might be put down.  He'll say "Giddyup, horsey!" (he might even wear spurs, the bastard!) and ignore the pain in your eyes.  Thirsty? Sorry, Seabiscuit.  You can get a cool drink only when your human says it's ok.

This is what horses wish they could say

4)  They eat grass, hay, and the occasional apple.  Not a brownie or burger in the mix. Sad life.

5) Horses stink.

6) They're most often kept in stables.  Not exactly the penthouse suite.

7)  A lot of them fall down--hard--in movies.  I know a lot of it is CGI, but some of that falling is real, and the horses don't even get a cut of the film profits.  And can you imagine doing multiple takes of the same scene where you have to fall down?  They didn't sign up to do stunts.  

Yeah, so that about sums it up.  I don't believe in reincarnation, but anyone who comes back as a horse must have done some bad things in his/her previous life.

The trouble with coupons

If you've read anything else on this blog, you already know that I'm not normal.  I'm sure the title of this post is further proof of that.  You must be asking: what kind of person has a problem with coupons?  They save you money, after all!  And sometimes, you can even get free stuff!  You must be crazy to be bitching about coupons.  You must have had a shitty childhood; that's why you're so bitter. 

Actually, I have (what I think is) a perfectly reasonable explanation for my beef with coupons. You would think that my problem with them would be the many excluded products listed in fine print near the bottom of the coupon, those exclusions that make you walk all the way to the cashier, have her ring up your merchandise and then hear the words, "I'm sorry.  You can't use this coupon for that skirt.  Only the (fill in the blank with ugly skirts no one wants) are discounted with this coupon."  I hate that, don't you?  Of course you do.  But actually, that's not what widened the wedge between me and coupons over the years.

It was the fact that coupons are so successful at manipulating people.  Indeed, coupons can harm you with more than just a paper cut. Luckily, I don't let myself get conned by them, but other shoppers are vulnerable and fall victim to the coupon's ways.  A shopper will see a coupon for $2.00 off salsa and then will go buy salsa because she has a coupon--even if she doesn't need salsa or salsa was not on her grocery list.  Although she saves $2.00, she still ends up spending more than she would have if she hadn't seen the coupon and had just bought milk, eggs, bread, toilet paper, and cinnamon rolls--you know, the essentials that you use daily.

                        

My mom got upset with me once because she saw a coupon for me and saved it.  She called me on the phone, excited to deliver the news (my mother has been seduced by coupons for years), and she said she'd mail me the coupon.  I told her, politely, no thank you and that she could keep the coupon.  She was hurt and thought I was being ungrateful.  I told her that I wasn't planning on buying that item in the grocery store, and I didn't want to buy it just because I had a coupon for it.  It just doesn't make sense to me. To my mom's credit, it was definitely something I do eat every now and then; it's not like she was trying to give me a coupon for Spam or something.  But still, she didn't understand that even with using the coupon, I'd be spending more money than I would otherwise.  Sometimes, people hadn't even planned on going to that store, but because they have a coupon for Bath & Body Works/The Sunglass Hut/Wherever, they drive all the way there to "save" money.

I am not averse to using coupons but I only use them if I was planning on buying that item or visiting that store anyway.  Otherwise, I'm a sucker.  Sorry.

Oh God yes.

I was moving back to Seattle anyway after I get hitched in a couple weeks, but this makes me even more excited.