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The Newsletter >
Last Will and Best Wishes
April 13, 2009
Last Will and Best Wishes*April 13, 2009
Sonny is old. Sonny is so old that the other day while eating hay in front of me in the barn, he began to choke. Concerned, I watched Sonny gag, cough, and hack up . . . a tooth—a big old stinky rotten—tooth. Sonny is a horse—a very old horse. He kept right on eating hay, minus one tooth.
I took it as a sign and began making plans for horse internment. Step one – call neighbor with backhoe, and step two – arrange for lethal injection, and yet I hesitated to pull the equine plug.
Right up until Monday, when Sonny developed a problem that can only be described as “dangling boy trouble.” Due to extreme swelling, Sonny is no longer able to retract his “dangling boy trouble.” He is now a toothless, obscene old horse. I have forbidden the grandchildren to look at him. I have forbidden myself to look at him.
When the vet showed up he recruited me as his assistant, and put me to work elevating and hosing down Sonny’s “dangling boy trouble” for thirty minutes. Sonny continued to eat hay—apparently pain free due to nerve damage. I got rubber gloves out of the deal. Sonny got several injections out of the deal. The vet then showed me how to rig up a “dangling boy trouble” sling out of a pair of my old panty hose—size A. For several days, I followed Sonny around the pasture, tucking his “trouble” back into the panty hose hammock when it fell out. It fell out a lot.
We called a family meeting and the vote was unanimous. It’s time. The men were particularly sensitive to Sonny’s dangling situation. Several were heard to say, “For goodness sake, a pantyhose banana hammock, give the old guy his dignity.”
Dignity for the horse, are you kidding? I thought the low point of my life was the day I heard the sound of one of my children (who was standing behind me at the time) throwing up in my hair. Then as I tucked Sonny’s “trouble” back into a pair of my pantyhose for the thirty-sixth time, I realized low points are all relative, and sometimes it can be a good day to die.
Linda (Bury My Heart With Rubber Gloves) Zern
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