I need an equine gyno...STAT!!

OK, y’all, I suck. And I’m not talking about sucking like you would out of a straw. I’m talking the kind of suck that has that Dyson guy making so much money. I’m a horrible blogger, if you haven’t noticed. Believe me, I really wanted to keep up with this, but holy freakin’ crap I’ve been busy.

Truth is, I’ve run out of school stories at the moment since I’m only in one class and I don’t want to talk about the class until I’m done. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. So I’m opening up my story base to whatever the heck is on my mind at the time.

Wait.

Do you hear it?

It’s my mental dam about to burst.

Hopefully my readers will come back.

Maybe if I tell them I’m giving away free baklava, you will read my blog again.

*Chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp*

C’mon people!! It’s baklava!! READ!!

Oh, you want something to read? My bad. Well, here you go.

So, last Saturday I went to my volunteer session with the horsies and the kiddies. I cannot even begin to tell you how miserable that was. Not the horses or the kids, or even the volunteers or instructors, but the conditions we had to work in were insane.

It all began before I even left the house while I was getting dressed. Now, I KNEW damn well that it was 80,000 degrees outside, so you can imagine the groan that came out of me and I’m pulling on a pair of jeans. I must be crazy, I thought. Well, they’re crazier for not cancelling lessons that day, but I digress. Already I knew I was going to be hating life.

After arriving at the stables, my heart sunk when I saw other volunteers there…nope, definitely NOT cancelled. *Sigh* Thank God I had the presence of mind to bring an extra gallon of ice water. Or, rather, a gallon sized bottle of quickly warming water that was very sweaty on the outside. Calling it ice water would be a stretch of reality.

[It was so hot that day that I drank at least 72 fluid ounces of water in a span of four hours and never peed once…and I STILL managed to get a dehydration headache when I got home.]

All the lessons went fine, as long as you loosen your definition of “fine” to mean walking around in a pool of my own sweat dealing with testy kids, of whom many cannot verbalize their discomfort, so they just cry and shriek a lot. To those of you who know me and my tolerance for whining minors, I was just having a friggin’ ball. I would have much rather been licking the burning sun…at least it would have been quiet and not so smelling of horse crap.

However, I did get a break in the middle where I got to clean tack in the barn instead of walk a lesson in the hot, nasty, dusty, stinky show ring. Not the most exciting job in the world, but since we were partying in Dante’s seventh ring of hell, I appreciated the reprieve.

The best part though, came at the end, after the last lesson of the afternoon. Typically, would just brush the horses and pick the crap out their hooves. [I’m pretty sure that particular process has some fancy equestrian name, but I don’t know what it would be, so crap-picking it is.] However, due to the heat, the instructors decided that hosing them down would be more comfortable for them. I completely agreed and was very enthusiastic to assist.

I can’t say, completely, that my motives for wanting to shower the horses was entire pure and educationally based. The truth is I was not going to be particularly upset if I accidentally splashed myself with a little water. Or if I accidentally held the shower nozzle over my own head and used the “one for you, one for me” method of sharing. But I never got the opportunity to share in the horse’s cool, aqueous relief as what happened next completely horrified me from dwelling on my sweat-induced discomfort.

As I’m hosing off the horse, the instructor is following behind me with a curved, plastic contraption that she’s using to scrape the excess water, sweat and dirt of said horsie. As we draw closer to the rear of the horse, the instructor informs me that I need to make sure that I (direct quote) “need to get the water and [my] hand up the ‘girly’ parts of the horses to remove the black residue that builds up in there.”

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! You want me to do WHAT NOW??????

So I did it. Surprisingly, the part I was squeamish about had nothing to do with playing around with the horse’s lady parts. I used to bath my dogs all the time…I’ve spent plenty of time around pet nether regions. Hell, the cats like to stick their little buttholes in my face, so I’m quite accustomed to dealing with pet “parts.”

No, the thing that completely floored me was the fact that I needed to dig around for whatever black gunk accumulates in the horse’s vaginal area.

(You know, I’ve scrubbed her privates already, so let’s just go ahead and give the horse a name. Her name is Callie. She’s a beautiful, sweet horse that enjoys hay, carrots and walks in the moonlight.)

What the hell is ANY creature doing with a black colored residue in that area? OK, I’m a female, so I feel qualified to speak to this topic. If I EVER see a black residue in MY “girly” area, I’m going straight to the ER (right after I’ve stopped shrieking hysterically). How the heck does this NOT signify some sort of illness, really? I was so mortified by playing with Callie’s “residue,” that my typically inquisitive brain forgot to cue me to ask the instructor what that stuff even was. I’ll have to find out later and get back to you on that. Because I’m sure you all are just DYING to know, right?

After what seemed like a disgusting eternity, I finally get done with that lovely little job. As I’m getting ready to put the hose away, the instructor says, “did you clean between her butt cheeks?”

Then I passed out.

Seriously, I didn’t even know horses HAD butt cheeks. But yep, they have butt cheeks. And I cleaned them. Oh, did I mention she had dropped a fresh, steaming pile of crap IN THE SHOWER STALL!?!?!?! So, yeah, I got to play with that “residue,” too. Callie and I REALLY got to know each other that day. Next week, she and I are going out for milkshakes and a movie at the drive in after lessons. Geez.

Incidentally, the discovery of butt cheeks on non-human creatures does not bode well for me at home. You see, whenever “T” cuts the cheese, so to speak, and blames it on Tucker (the poor, dumb dog), I always have the solid rebuttal that dogs don’t have butt cheeks and, therefore, cannot physically generate that intensity of sound. Now that I know animals actually DO have butt cheeks, I’m just going to have to find another argument to defend Tucker’s honor.