Friday, July 8, 2011

The Undead

Anyone who's ever seen the sequel to any really popular slasher / zombie / vampire / chainsaw-wielding maniac / cave-dwelling mutant movie will recognize this scene:  Our Hero(ine), who nearly died at the end of the first movie while dispaching (in some dramatic way) The Really Bad Thing, is sitting in bed, late at night, watching TV and snuggling with The Love Interest.  Suddenly, there's a noise ... an eerily familiar noise ... Our Hero(ine) bolts upright, and The Really Bad Thing bursts into the room and proceeds to reduce The (Now Shrieking) Love Interest to bloody hash while Our Hero(ine) screams, "Ohmygod!  Why won't you just DIE?!"

I had that happen today.  Okay, so there was no Love Interest and no bloody hash and no screaming (though there was profanity), but ... Remember this saddle?  "It's ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack ..."



... even more ragged and unsafe than before.  Both panels are still loose, but now the left front panel has lost the screw that held the upper corner on the tree, the stitching is broken and the panel's almost completely adrift:


Nice view of the panel foam (what's left of it).


And the other side's just as torn up:

  

I'm being stalked by The Undead.

Has this saddle been in use since I declared it dead almost two years ago?  I hope not, because this is a wreck waiting to happen.  It was awful back then, and it's worse now.  Perhaps I need to couch my diagnosis in stronger terms this time and hope my message gets through:  I won't be party to a horse and/or rider getting injured because I did a Dr. Frankenstein on this saddle.  I ought to shoot it with a silver bullet, cut off its billets, pound a stake through the seat, wrap it in a string of garlic, strew it with white roses, take it across running water and bury it at a crossroads.  Begone, demon, and follow me no more.

8 comments:

Val said...

Hilarious! And terrifying!

A very creative post, although I realize that you mean every word.

jane augenstein said...

Oh my goodness! What happened to that saddle? Old age, rough, really rough life? Poor thing! Yes, steak and garlic sound like a good recipe for it! LOL

Amber said...

I love your comparison to movies :)! Lol, I just had to keep reading to see where you were going with that. Yeah, the saddle does look a bit scary... Anyways, thank you for brightening my morning :).

Barefoot Basics said...

I do remember that saddle, that is scary if it has been used all that time. Could you maybe box it up in bits and then claim some sort of courier related incident in the hope they would just give it the burial it deserves (eg in a lead coffin, facing north at the bottom of the sea)?

Anonymous said...

wonderful post! I hope and pray it hasn't been used! I don't know how anyone could put that on anything but a rocking horse! Barefoot basics has certainly got a good idea! Don't know if your postal service is as bad as ours (England) but 'lost in the post' seems a good preventative measure! Who needs to know its doing a rather nice job of toasting you some marshmallows/sausages etc. . . On an unrelated note. Could you possibley share your experiences of fitting ex-racers and or TB types? My wonky (shark-finned)donkey is proving a little bit of a headache fitting a jumping/gp on my budget! Kind regards from sunny Blighty

DeLady said...

Is it just me, or does the tree look twisted too?

Liz Stout said...

The number of techniques used to rid supernatural things all jammed into one paragraph was VERY impressive, and made me crack up royally. Thanks for that - you really have a way with words. And best of luck banishing the demon.

Crayonsmom said...

Well, against my gut feeling I want to give the owner of that saddle the benefit of the doubt... But if that thing HAS been in use all this time, I sure feel sorry for the horse(s) that had to wear it.

Could you perhaps pretend to try to fix it, break the tree (on purpose) and lie and say it was already broken? ^w^ Or maybe that wouldn't even stop the owner... Or even just burn it and say there was an accident while you were microwaving some taquitos? I guess the only "real" option is to say what you said last time. That it's beyond use. It saddens me to think that your words might jsut be falling on deaf ears though. :(

@Liz, I was thinking the same thing. I loved that last paragraph, er- run-on sentence! :D