Heart of Darkness

Scout and Kitty eat about 600 pounds of hay every week. In the horse world, they call them "easy keepers" because you don't have to give them grain or supplements to maintain their weight. In the nonprofessional world, we call them fat. Yes, they are fat horses.

Every winter I line the fence to the north with large round bales to block the icy wind from whipping through the corral. Normally, they don't mess with the bales, because of the electric fence. Clever as they are, they discover that the fence is not presently charged. Instead of finishing the end of the bale they have in the corral, they move on to the tasty ones just outside of their area.

I never noticed it before I discovered Marge Simpson, but I make the same growling noise she does when she's witnessing something that annoys her. "Alright, you two, you asked for it." I'm going to fix the fence. I gear up: socket set and driver, electric drill, spare fence parts, screws, tool belt, and electrical tape. I am the Chuck Norris of fence repair.

Since the north fence was disassembled, I decide to start there. Now, do you remember the old lawn chairs from the seventies? My fence is made out of a tape kind of like that, but it's woven through with a series of wires to carry electricity. Genius, it is, because it's light and easy to handle. I think it took about an hour to string the entire corral.

Feeling like the enforcer, I duck through the fence and start pulling the lower section tight. I am obviously irresistible, because the horses come right over and start playing in my hair. This is a classic Scout maneuver. He starts out being very sweet and twirls the hair on the top of my head, then he gets bored and starts in with some serious sniffing. If I'm paying attention, I know this is the time to get out of the way, because he's going to blow snot all over me. "Get lost! Back, back." He plays along and steps away. I lean in to reattach a fitting onto the fence post and Kitty pulls the screw driver out of my tool belt. "Hey, give that to me." I grab my screwdriver and put it away.

Scout is enormous. He's 16 hands at the withers which makes his back level with the top of my head. That gives him an extra three feet in neck and head over me. He looks like he's staying back, but as soon as I'm distracted, that giraffe neck stretches out and snatches my socket set. "That's it! Give that to me." I shove all of my tools through the fence, out of the reach of the raptors. I grab my battery powered drill, aim it at them and pull the trigger a few times. That gets their attention. They shift their weight to their hind quarters, widen the stance on their front legs and bug their eyes out at me.

I get the fitting reattached and pull the fence tape taught. They have decided the threat has passed and follow me from post to post. I fetch the solar unit from the pasture fence and hook it up to this corral. Of course, I have to drop some small parts into the long grass, so I can dig around for a few minutes which attracts the dogs. "Away, you animals!" It is perpetually playtime at my house.

Now comes the good part. I turn the fence on. I have to admit, this next part troubles me a bit. After watching the horses push through the fence and tear apart two bales, I am hoping to witness the moment when they discover the fence is active. I move around the back corner of the fence with my eyes keenly fixed on my delinquent horses. "Ahh, here it is!" My moment. Kitty reaches through the fence and grabs a mouthful of hay. And...nothing. What? She goes in for the next bite and whoa! There it is! She spins around on her rears and heads for the back of the corral. Scout runs after her, takes a stance between Kitty and the unknown threat at the front of the corral. He snorts and looks as tall as possible. Victory! What comes out of my mouth at that moment is a laugh so evil, I shock myself. "Heh, heh, heh." No, that's not it. There was a "y" sound in there. "Hyeh, hyeh, hyeh." Yes, that's it, much more diabolical.

Why was I so delighted with that? Was I relishing in their pain? Have I discovered some darkness in my soul? Bah! No, that's just silly. The truth is simple. Sometimes pain is just funny. The Three Stooges made a mint off of that truth and if you watch YouTube or one of those send in your home video shows, you know the funniest ones are always when someone inadvertantly injures himself. It's not just other people's pain. I once gave myself a humdinger of a black eye by pulling a 20 ounce Diet Pepsi out of it's plastic holder from the top shelf of my fridge. I had a hold of that bottle with one hand and held the six pack with the other. Boy, that thing was stubborn, so I gave it a good pull and when it gave way, whacked myself right in the eye. I laughed my fool head off.

Maybe pain is funny when we deserve it for being stupid. Or, in the case of my horses, it is funny when you just have it comin'.