17 Signs You’re Probably Not Going to Grow Out of This Horse Thing
“Normal” people might not understand your obsession. But who cares about them?
Once when I took a creative writing class and was brainstorming my next story, one of my classmates suggested that I write about why I didn’t stop riding as I grew up. I never wrote that story. Why? It had honestly never occurred to me to stop riding. And I’m sure many of you, dear HorseNation readers, feel the same way.
So I’ve gathered up, in my typical completely unscientific way, several symptoms that your equine obsession is a chronic condition. Unfortunately there is no cure…only treatment.
1. You view any extra money you get in terms of how many lessons it will buy you.
2. You use your vacation days for horse shows and clinics.
3. Your breeches-to-jeans ratio is 2:1 or greater.
4. You tell your significant other you’ll be home from the barn at a certain time, but you both know to add at least an hour onto that estimate.
5. You motivate yourself at work by letting yourself read HorseNation articles whenever you finish something.
6. You’ve stopped caring about the stares you get from wearing your barn clothes at the grocery store.
7. You can count on your fingers the number of equine events you’ve had to skip last minute. But social engagements that you missed for your horse? The list goes on.
8. Your definition of “early” and “sleeping in” are VERY different from most people.
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9. Barn smell? What barn smell?
10. Your car is a portable tack trunk.
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11. You find bits of hay everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
13. For you, retail therapy is buying fancy fly spray.
14. You’re tempted to talk about life lessons learned at the barn when you go in for a job interview.
15. Though you hate when your horse isn’t well, you secretly kind of like peeling off the scabs from scratches and messing with other weird skin things.
16. The dishes are dirty, the laundry isn’t done, and if you don’t remember to wake up early, you won’t even have time to get gas to drive to work…but your horse has been put away clean and happy, and your tack is pristine.
17. And finally…you know that all those people who look at you weird in the grocery store don’t have a clue what they’re missing out on.
Go Riding!
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