Reporter will have revenge upon horse
The horse looked on with some amusement as I sat in my car, spinning my wheels.
There's no anthropomorphism going on here. If a horse could chuckle, this one was.
The scene: Our hero, the brave Columbia Basin Herald business and agriculture reporter, is well on his way to an appointment with Heath Gimmestad, farm agronomist for Friehe Farms, for a story that will run in the Potato Tab to promote the Washington State Potato Conference and Trade Show in February.
He is happy. He is well ahead of time (a fact that often earns him mockery from his fellow reporters because sometimes they think he leaves too early, but there is a name for such people — "late"). And then, tragically, he turns into the less-traveled entrance to the farm and, after traveling about 10 feet, promptly gets stuck in the snow.
Thus follows a stream of language fit not for print, but more for a Yosemite Sam-Bugs Bunny cartoon ("Rackafrackin' car getting stuck in the rackafrackin' snow!") as our hero tries desperately to shift from forward to reverse and back again, in effort to rock free of his icy prison of snowy heck.
It was an undertaking made all the more amusing by the fact that the gear indicator had stuck, as it is sometimes wont to do, on L, and so our hero had to figure out by counting on his hands and fingers which gear he was in before pressing down harder upon the accelerator.
Drawn by the sounds of hilarious profanity, a horse in the neighboring pasture (make that NEIGH-boring pasture) wanders over to assess the situation.
Were he Mr. Ed, no doubt he would offer some sort of sage wisdom as to how our hero can escape his predicament. ("Turn your wheels so that they're straight, Wilbur.")
Were he Silver, faithful steed to the Lone Ranger, no doubt he would slip between the posts of the fence and push until the car is loose, then slip back in and feel good about himself and the deed he just did for all of humanity, with no further need for reward.
Were he Thunder the Uberhorse, he would simply fly up over the fence, lift the car with his magical muscles and carry it to safety, conduct the interview and type it up himself, and then fly our hero to some tropical island location to wait until things begin to thaw in mid-March.
But no. This was a normal, everyday horse, and he elected to laugh at me instead. Or, at least, to look on, with a twinkle in his eye.
"This'll teach you to write a My Turn griping about summer sunshine," he seemed to be saying. "Look how the winter treats you."
Of course, Heath Gimmestad quickly came out and rode to our hero's rescue, for which this reporter is eternally grateful.
The interview commenced, and concluded without incident. In no time, our hero was back in the office, working diligently on the story and thanking the doughnut gods that someone had seen fit to bestow Krispy Kremes upon the newsroom.
As he munches contentedly on a blueberry doughnut, rage subsiding and giving way to fullness, our hero again gives thanks — for well plowed streets, for doughnuts and for Heath Gimmestad-type people, those of the "Of course I'll help you" type nature.
As for the horse?
No, there is no gratitude for you, equine! Mark my words: One day, you shall be in a similar circumstance — sitting there in your car and stuck in the snow. And when the day comes, I shall respond in kind, by ambling over and offering casual observance, with nary a hint of helpful advice nor an offer to push.
Then, and only then, the shoe will truly be on the other hoof.
There is no Thunder the Uberhorse. Matthew Weaver, Columbia Basin Herald
business and agriculture reporter, merely made him up to prove a valid point about how the horse in question could have been more helpful during his predicament.