Iowa: part 2 - Tiny Town

Golden retrievers
Grapes
Rex Grossman
United Airlines
Dolly Parton
Hot summer days
Thanksgiving
Eskimo college scholarships
Carole King
The Coal Miner’s Daughter
Volkswagen Passats
Van Morrison
Beer in containers greater than 12 ounces

The list above is just a malnourished fraction of the topics you can bring up around the G that will result in her responding, “I have a friend whose mom raises miniature horses.” She claims that they are bred as helper horses and it’s one of her favorite avenues of conversation. I assume being a helper horse means they eat small amounts of unwanted hay you may having lying around or possibly quell tiny riots. She also claims that they wear slippers painted to look like tennis shoes so they won’t scuff supermarket floors. But the G is a known fabulist.

The thing is, even though she loves talking about them, I’m not sure that my dear wife has had much personal exposure to miniature horses. The idea of a shrunken version of any draft animal is obviously charming. And since the G is a girl and all girls love horses and all horses can be manipulated to produce weensy-ized versions of their parents, it would be natural for her to become infatuated. Or so argued my college Logic professor who looked like a Fraggle.

I, on the other hand, have intimate familiarity with miniature horses seeing that I have just returned from an Iowa county fair. I have looked into the face of these stupid things and can tell you without reservation that they are by no means cute or worthy of anyone’s adoration.



First, they have strange hair. It feels like a dog’s fur after it’s been shaved for the summer so it won’t get hot. It’s dry to the touch but still looks somehow oily. Almost like if it’s been greased up with its own canine shame.

Second, they have weird eyes. They’re not soulless like a shark’s or a possessed doll’s but they look dead nonetheless. They didn’t react to any movement in front of their faces like hand waving or carrot nubs or fried cheesecakes. And most of the one’s I saw had some serious discharge and subsequent crust-ation.



Finally, they clearly look ______*. It’s a word you’re not allowed to call people anymore although I assume it still enjoys popularity in middle and high schools. And if you use this there will always be one girl nearby who has a brother and she scolds you for being insensitive. You know the word I’m talking about. Miniature horse’s heads aren’t shaped like other horses’ heads. They’re bulgy in weird places. Whatever is genetically influenced to achieve itsy-bitsyness also clearly causes some sort of retardation.

Fine. You made me say it. Miniature horses look retarded. I’m not proud of feeling this way.

Their images beg for photo manipulation. Below is an example of the only acceptable use of miniature horses, as far as Pygmalions are concerned: baby unicorns. Not miniature unicorn only baby unicorns.



Only a fraction of the distaste for these abominations can fall to the horses themselves. The rest clearly falls on the breeders. But I haven’t determined what is worse, the fact that they are bred into stupidity to be judged and mocked or that they are actually forced to drag their captors around.



This seems wildly unfair.


*The N: Can I call a horse retarded?
The G: i think it would be funnier the farther you take trying to not say "retarded"
but yes
that horse
looks retarded