Horseplay

Story Sent in by Charles:

I had a good time on my first date with Emily, but I couldn't tell if she did. I assumed that she did because she said yes to a second date. When I asked her if she wanted to do anything in particular, she said, "Surprise me. That's your job."

She had once said that she had done horseback riding as a little girl, so I signed us up for a riding lesson. I had been on a horse precisely once and apparently she hadn't been on a horse in over 20 years. So the gift of horse it was.

I didn't tell her what we were doing (she had said to surprise her) but when we drove up to the farm, she guessed it. And she was very, very excited.

"It's like riding a bicycle," she said, among other things about horseback riding, "You never forget it!"

That didn't make sense to me, as I'd guess that unlike bikes, different horses had different temperaments. But we signed our liability releases and started with the lesson. During the lesson, Emily would whisper in a not-so-soft voice, "The instructor's doing it all wrong," or "I can do better than that."

Once we were allowed to mount horses, we were given the option to have an instructor lead us around or to try it on our own. I opted for an instructor, as like I said, it had been a great while for me.

Emily grabbed a horse and took off with it, around the paddock. It looked like she knew what she was doing. Then she galloped it toward the paddock fence. Instead of jumping over it, which might have been Emily's intent, the horse banked a swift turn, throwing Emily out of the saddle and nearly off the horse, itself.

"Hey!" she yelled, "Hey, hey!" over and over.

A couple instructors ran over to her and steadied the horse once it had slowed to a trot. Emily climbed down and said, "This horse is broken! Stupid thing almost killed me. Give me another!"

The instructor told her, "I think you've had enough for one day."

"Excuse me," Emily said, "But you don't know what you're talking about. You ride a horse like an elderly nun."

And that's when we were asked to leave the farm. Coincidentally, that's also when I decided to not have another date with Emily.

*

(What kind of horse?)