Ride 'Em

I realized that I never told the "cowboy" story as promised. No better time than now, eh? When we were down in Arizona, one of the big things Jack wanted to do was go horseback riding. He'd done it once before but has recently become a lot more interested in horses in general. Not in a girlie, "My Little Pony" kinda way wherein you want to plait your horsies hair and marry it when you grow up. He just thinks they're cool. And I agree. I rode a decent amount when I was growing up even though my dad never bought me the horse he promised me. I'm still waiting. He did eventually produce the swimming pool he promised although I'm not sure if it counts if you're in your thirties and no longer living at home. But enough about my childhood heartbreak. On the last day of our trip, we arranged for a trail ride at a local ranch. Our group was comprised of me, my mom, Dave and Jack. Oh, and some family from Chicago but they're not really relevant to the story. They take you into the corral and size you up and then match you up with a horse. This was rather hilarious the last time we went riding as Dave was looked up and down and assigned a draft horse named "Hercules". Fortunately, even though this was during the thyroid shit storm days, I was still given a normal sized horse. I would have died had they said, "Uh.....we had better bring out Atlas for this gal". Anyway, my mom is not a big horse person and was looking about nervously. She said, "I hope mine is named "Ol' Gummy Joe" or something. Not far off......she got "Jim". Although he was about as docile as a lamb, she claimed he was straight outta hell. Gross exaggeration. I hopped on Buckshot, Jack climbed on a really nice female horse, Dave mounted whoever he was assigned to and off we went. Our cowboy was initially an older gentleman, apparently the owner of the ranch. Very nice gent. My mom, who was a couple of horses behind me and Buckshot yells up, "Excuse me?!?! My horse doesn't seem very happy!!!!" The cowboy said, "Ma'am, he's just fine". Then out of nowhere, this totally hot cowboy rides up. Apparently he is taking over our ride!  Yay!!!!! Things just got a lot more interesting! Particularly when says, "Why don't you come up here and ride with me?" And he was talking to MEEEEEEEEEE. I'm thinking, "Dang, I've still got it!" Double yay! We're chattin' it up, having a simply lovely ride (the fact that my husband was right behind me notwithstanding.....my ego was in control of the situation) when my mom starts complaining from the rear again. I said, "MOM!!!!! It's FINE!!!!! RELAX". Cowboy turns around, lifts up his sunglasses, looks at me, looks at mom and says, "That's your MOM????? What, was she like SEVENTEEN when she had you???" Well, if you must know, pretty much. She was 19 but close enough. Talk about having the wind let out of your sails. This is a bit of an issue for me as it happens ALL THE TIME. People are GOBSMACKED when they find out that Rosie is in fact my mother and not my sister. This is GREAT for her. Not so much for me. I think I'm going to have to go have some work done or something so that I actually look like my mother may in fact be my MOTHER. What's it take to make a 42-year old look twenty five? I'm about to find out, damn it. I have a feeling it's going to involve my head and a bag. Wouldn't be the first time. Wonder if I could put a cowboy hat over the bag?