Untethered

I really hated my college experience. Sure, the education was fine, but it was definitely not my scene. I went to a small, private, Lutheran (what?) school in the Midwest. The campus was beautiful and idyllic and that’s pretty much where the fun began and ended. I was a kid on financial aid among a bunch of other kids who paid full tuition and drove new cars. It was the 90s, so we all dressed like hobos, but most of those other kids’ hobo clothes were designer. 

I thought it was a good idea to go to this school because they gave me a grant (hooray!), they had a field hockey team that I wanted to play on, and I was, at the time, laboring under the delusion that I was going to become a veterinarian and they had a good biology program. Flash forward: after semester one, I had quit the field hockey team because it was full of the nastiest bullies I’ve ever met (to this day!), flunked Biology 101 (the only class I ever failed, including Typing in high school which nearly sent me over the edge), and I could not stand being isolated in a small town with no museums. And yet, somehow, inexplicably, I stayed there the full four years. I made some friends, joined a sorority (also, what?), and sucked it up until graduation. But unlike other alumni, I do not look back on those years fondly at all. In fact, after incessant phone calls asking me to donate to the school, I finally told the person on the other end of the phone, “She’s dead,” when they asked to speak to me. Fortunately, they’ve never called again and I stopped getting the damned alumni magazine. If I had it to do my college experience all over again, I wouldn’t. 

Anyway, I digress. Because I had given up on field hockey, I was required to take PE credits instead. If there’s one thing to be said about a rich kid school, they offer rich kid PE classes. Evidenced by the fact that, my junior year, I decided to take horseback riding (it might’ve even been called Equestrian something or other) for my PE credit. Our school wasn’t snotty enough (or big enough) to have our own stables, so we had to ride 45 minutes away in a rickety old athletic department van to the place where the horses were. (Can you believe these people had the nerve to charge an additional fee to take this class? Like, $25K a year wasn’t enough, we need an extra $175 so you can ride a horse. At least we didn't have to buy books, I guess.) Sometimes, on the way back from our lesson, we stopped at Dairy Queen, which was probably the best meal I had in my four years in Ohio (but that’s another story for another day and involves lasagne made with cottage cheese). 

As part of our equine education, we were also required to learn how to groom and tack the horses (I think this is what it was called, but don’t feel like googling to confirm). This consisted of brushing them and scraping crap out from under their hooves, as well as putting blankets and saddles and other stuff on the horse. Most of it smelled bad. It was all covered in dusty, brown dirt, and so was I after about six minutes. As a lifelong avid indoorswoman, I don’t know what made me think this was a good idea, but I suppose it was better than volleyball.

My horse was named Mica and he was an asshole. When it would come time for my lesson, and his grooming, he’d first turn away from me smugly as soon as he saw me coming. Then, as I was trying to brush him or whatever, he’d step on my foot. Every week, he stepped on my foot. 2,000 pounds of horse. On. My. Foot. Asshole. Then, when it was time to scrape the gunk from his hooves, he’d refuse to lift his foot. Four hooves, four times. I usually had to ask for help. I’m telling you, this horse was an asshole. Once, he was even successful in his attempts to bite me when I was trying to put the bit in his mouth. He liked biting. A lot.

These weren’t prime racing horses, of course. They were old, bored trail horses. And mine hated his job. The first part of the lesson, after we had gotten good and dirty from rubbing the horse and scooping actual crap out of its hooves, was ring riding. This is where we learned techniques, none of which I can remember. (There was one girl in the class who was an “accomplished equestrian,” which probably meant she had her own horse as a kid. She rode English style on a dainty little saddle. She wore a helmet and jodhpurs and shiny black boots like she was the literal Queen of England and basically got private lessons while the rest of us were riding Western style with clunky old saddles and ugly boots.)

Mica hated ring work, and so did I. This was the time during the lesson when they’d instruct us to use your left foot to make the horse go left or some shit. It was at this point when Mica would try to bite my foot, and the instructor would yell at me to control him better. Short of kicking him in the teeth (which I was not about to do), what the fuck did that mean? I weighed 100 pounds and Mica was the size of a Buick. How was I supposed to control him better? Thank god this course was just a credit and not a grade, because Mica was determined to make me look bad.

After an hour of slogging around the ring, we would go on a lovely, boring trail ride through the woods. Mica didn’t mind this much, since he could just lazily follow the horse in front of him on a route he had probably trod a thousand times before. Unless they tried to make us trot. Then Mica would hold up the whole line of other horses and go his own pace. One time they gave me a stick that I was supposed to use as a crop to see if it might help, but it never did much for Mica’s attitude. 

The only time Mica was remotely cooperative was the day they had us ride bareback. It was a strange feeling, with no stirrups or saddle. But it was really free. Mica thought so, too. Turns out, he must’ve really not liked his saddle, because the day we rode without one, he was attentive, agile, and -- dare I say -- fun. On the trail ride, he trotted with zeal! He even “jumped” over a log in the path instead of stepping over it slowly, one foot at a time (as was his usual manner). But, he still stepped on my foot, and definitely tried to bite me when I removed his bridle that day. To be honest, I’m feeling pretty lucky that Mica never kicked me in the head. 

It’s only now that I realize Mica and I were more alike than it seemed. Like him, I didn’t want to be saddled with the misery of the smalltown Midwest. I wanted to be free. I wanted to jump over logs and run away from the boring place that was keeping me tethered. I wanted to bite someone. Seriously, I really hated Ohio.