Giddy'Up

Sunday, March 30, 2008

I'm almost afraid to write this, because you may begin to think (given a few earlier posts) that I don't do any actual work. I can produce evidence if needed that I actually do something productive for my employer, but I'm not quite dumb enough to reveal on the WWW too much about what I do (in the interests of both keeping my job and not losing your interest). That said, I do get to take an occasional time-out from the daily grind (i.e. sitting in a cubicle all day) for activities ostensibly intended to build team unity and increase morale. Usually, this means attending some sort of sporting event or participating in something highly athletic like bowling, laser tag, or pool, but in this case, it meant pretending to be a cowboy.

I must confess that I didn't grow up dreaming of being a cowboy. In fact, I don't think the idea ever even crossed my mind. Even though I grew up in the country, it was mining country and not cowboy country (meaning that there were a few horses and cows running around but many, many, many more wild burros). I think prior to last Thursday, I'd been on a horse once about 20 years ago, and all I remember of that was being really sore.

Despite that, when I had the option in this team-builder of either herding cattle or following along on a hayride, I picked the horse option. In the end, I'm glad I did for two reasons. First, only two people of about 30 rode on the truck, so they looked pretty lonely and bored most of the time. Second, I haven't had too many "Arizona" experiences since we moved here (haven't been to the Grand Canyon yet, etc.), and this definitely felt like an authentic Arizona experience.

Now, I'm not saying this was a highly challenging cattle herd. Since there was roughly a 1:1 human-bovine ratio, the cattle were pretty much surrounded, and we weren't exactly moving too quickly (in fact, it was tricky enough to keep the horses and cows from stopping all the time to eat anything remotely green in their path). Really, the only hard part was figuring out how to talk to the cows without sounding like either a moron or a complete city slicker. Here are a few other clues that this wasn't completely real.

• I snapped this picture partway through the ride. I'm pretty sure real cowboys don't take pictures with camera phones (maybe I'm wrong - maybe now they all have Blackberries and MySpace pages).

• About halfway through, we stopped for a break and all got handed little Aquafina bottles from the hayride truck. I try to avoid watching old John Wayne movies (it's a little difficult, though, thanks to AMC showing them late at night when I can't sleep), but I don't think I've ever seen the Duke or any other cowboy chugging bottled water, particularly the little 4 oz. variety.
• The cows ended up in the same corral in which they started, so it was really more like taking them for a walk.
• Half the time, we'd get ahead of the cows and have to wait for them all to catch up. I'm fairly certain that's not how it's supposed to work.

Ignoring all of that, though, I was fine pretending that I was actually driving cattle and had a pretty good time. I figure that the horses probably had the least fun through this whole experience. You don't realize how big horses are until you're sitting on one, and mine gave me the eye every time I pulled on the bridle a little too hard during an unannounced bathroom break or a nice weed snack. The real cowboys (you could tell by the boots) kept telling me to kick him harder when he slowed down and that it "doesn't hurt them," but I'm not sure I buy that. The fact is that my horse could have made me go away any time he wanted (we had to sign a disclaimer acknowledging that horseback riding can cause death and promising not to sue), so I was fine being a little cautious about slamming my Sketchers into his kidneys.