Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The Horse Misterer

Who says Hick never buys anything for Val? Well...besides VAL. Yesterday, at 6:35 p.m., Hick sent me an email from the BARn.

"Bought you two horses"

I know Hick. No way would he buy me two ACTUAL horses. No sirree, Bob! Even though he has no qualms about buying turkeys and a mini pony and taking free goats for himself. So I knew right away he meant that he had bought me two fake horses. Not a giant (or life-size) horse carved from wood, like Li'l Val used to marvel at on trips to Silver Dollar City, in the woodworkers' shop. I figured Hick was fulfilling my childhood desire for fake horses.

Velvet Brown had nothing on Li'l Val. Okay. So she DID ride a wayward piebald to victory in the Grand National, and inherit living, breathing, pooping horses fictionally. But she started out with fake play horses. So hers were cut from magazines and glued to cardboard and kept in a cigar box and taken out every night for exercise before bed. But Li'l Val had fake play horses, too. Plastic ones, resin ones, ceramic ones, and a very special head that she carved herself, out of a bar of white soap. And while Li'l Val stopped short of giving her fake horses a rubdown after fake galloping...she DID hand-sew horse blankets for the larger ones from material scraps given to her for that very purpose by her mother.

Yes, Li'l Val's stable ranged from the high-end Breyer line of realistic resin models like a bay Arabian mare and foal...to the cheap Woolworth's dime store bag of hollow plastic thumb-sized black and brown and white horses molded with a saddle and a hole on each side for a cowboy or Indian's leg pegs to pop into. Li'l Val was a fake-horse aficionado.

Lucky for Val, Hick sent a picture with that email.


Yes, they are not large. They are breakable. But they are HORSES, by cracky, bought for Val by Hick! I sent him a text.

"Thanks. Did they cost $1700?"

Funny how Hick did not reply! So I asked The Pony if he knew that his dad bought me two horses.

"Uh huh. On our trip to Goodwill on Saturday."

"How much did he spend?"

"I don't know. Maybe 50 cents apiece? We wrapped them in paper so they wouldn't break on the ride home."

According to Hick later that evening, he spent A DOLLAR apiece for them. You will notice no shortage of items Hick has bought for himself at Goodwill or the auction. They sit on my former kitchen table, the one Hick moved to the BARn when he decreed that my mom's kitchen table, formerly my grandma's kitchen table, should take its place in our kitchen and then left it in the garage for a month.

A DOLLAR apiece! I guess Hick is not saving up to buy me a $3.00 change purse and two boxes of Sno-Caps any time soon.

14 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Let the record show it!

      Even though Hick might disagree and mark me down like last winter's snow shovel.

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  2. Small but good looking. Will you be breeding them?

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    Replies
    1. Oh. Um. My mind was still on Joe H's comment, and I thought, there for a moment, that you were calling ME small but good looking!

      I don't know how much success I will have, but that's a project to look into. All these trendy young whippersnappers spending $75,000 for a tiny house would surely be interested in tiny horses to put on their tiny shelves that double as steps to their cramped loft bedroom.

      I could call it The Tiny Horse Movement.

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  3. I was given a flower press once - a flower press Val ... I'd have happily swapped it for a horse or two even 50 cents one ...

    ReplyDelete
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    1. A FLOWER PRESS? (Let the record show that if said out loud, my inflection would be like that of Doug Neidermeyer when he said, "A PLEDGE PIN?" to Flounder in Animal House.)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9_EiSaNw3Q

      You could start your own quote: "My flower press for a horse!"

      Delete
  4. Well giddyup! If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.

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    Replies
    1. For Hick to buy somebody else something at Goodwill is the sincerest form of love.

      He used to buy my mom cake plates, until she had them stacked along the floor of her dining room (the china cabinet was full) and asked him not to bring any more.

      Delete
  5. I love miniature horses but those are a little too small for me!!

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    1. Well...it's not like you have to RIDE one down the trail into the Grand Canyon.

      Delete
  6. Awww, he likes you. He really likes you.

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    1. Yes! When I win my Academy Award, I will be sure to mention Hick's fondness of me in my acceptance speech.

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  7. See, he was thinking about you! And, as we all know, it is the thought that counts!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, it IS the thought that counts. I'm just happy he wasn't thinking about me wanting another $3.00 change purse.

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