Hostage Situation - Small town Texas style

Normally, I get about around 5:15. I shower, then bathe (not nearly as anal as it sounds - I wash my hair in the shower and then read in the tub), get dressed and leave the house around 6:30. I stop at the gym, the local convenience store, the post office, McDonald's (sausage biscuit for the dog at work) and then go to work, arriving there around 7:45.

Not this morning.

This morning, I ignored the alarm, my husband, and my dogs. I finally got out of bed at 7:09, jumped into my clothes, brushed my hair and teeth, kennelled the good dog, grabbed my stuff and left.

In the yard was the bad dog, the one who wouldn't come in. She was in our small yard, the neighbor's horse was in our big yard and my car was in the parking lot (my house is a mobile home in the middle of 5 acres of pasture). Holly, the dog, is just spastic. She won't come near me because she has convinced herself that I will grab her and toss her in the house. I don't have time and frankly, this morning I don't care. She didn't know that and she didn't care.

The horse, Freckles (I didn't name him), is a paint gelding. He was gelded WAY too late. He is unrideable, unreliable, sometimes disagreeable and generally NOT "my little pony." He is beautiful and he likes me - not his owner, not my husband, not the farrier, but me.

So, there I was, a 65 pound Boxer losing her mind behind me and a however many pounds horse leaning on the gate in front of me.

Freckles minds me not at all.

I told him to go. He stayed.

I told him to leave. He stayed.

I shooed him. He stayed.

I opened the gate into him. He stayed.

He was never vicious or anything. He was just unmoveable.

Finally, in desperation, I decided to call my husband. I would ask him to call me, in the hope that maybe the noise of the phone would startle Freckles and he would move.

I called my husband. He was in the shop with the rest of the guys. I explained to him what I needed and he started laughing. He then started repeating everything I said so the rest of the guys could laugh, too. He suggested I pick up a 2x4 and just hit the horse. I told him that that was why the horse didn't like him and did like me and that I was NOT gonna hit the horse. He said to just hit him across his rump. I told him I couldn't reach the horse's rump and that I was not gonna hit the horse and could he please just call me! The guys in the back are hysterical by this point. He did call me. Freckles LIKES the phone ringing. He moved even closer so that he could hear better.

I answered the phone and asked my husband to just drive into the yard. Freckles, as stated earlier, does not like my husband. So - my husband left his job, drove home and - the minute he turned off of the highway and the horse could hear the pickup - the flippin' horse moved! By the time Shorty (my husband) got up to the parking area, that blessed horse wasn't even close to our yard!

I walked through the yard, unchained the gate into the parking area (Freckles likes to open the gate and go out into the 'wide, wide world'), thanked my husband and got in my car. I was not late for work but I didn't get to the gym or the post office or.....

Thank you, honey.