I wish people would quit asking me about horses

I’ve received a number of comments (n=2) in response to the horse & beggar post, from people asking me to clarify some other sayings they’ve come across and were unwilling or unable to figure out on their own. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that I have just touched the surface of the tip of a vast iceberg of axiomatic bafflement sweeping the country. People today seem to have lost touch with this repository of folk wisdom that is such an important part of our national heritage, but that nobody can make heads or tails of. It’s a national disgrace, really, and something should be done about it.

However, I don’t see why I have been called upon to do it, when I’ve made it abundantly clear in previous posts that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Especially when it comes to horses and women. You know who knows a lot about horses, is that Michael Brown. It probably would have worked out better if they’d made me director of FEMA and had him answer these horse questions.

But that’s all water under the bridge. I never should have stuck my finger in this tarbaby in the first place, but now I’ve made my bed and I’ll have to lie in it. I guess it’s just my cross to bear, but you know what—it’s a damn sight better than having to carry an actual cross around, so I suppose I should thank my lucky stars and just grin and bear it with a stiff upper lip. I’ll give it a shot, and let the chips fall where they may.

First off, Sandy has asked me to explain the saying “Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.” Well, it never hurts to be careful, crossing the street or whatever, but wishing has become particularly dangerous in recent years due to deregulation. The major wish-granting entities (e.g., genies, stars, submerged pennies, etc.) are a pretty ill-tempered lot, and it makes them cranky to have to give people their wishes, even though it’s their job. Especially genies, they’re the worst. They’re spiteful little things. I guess they just get burned out after years of wish-granting and become bitter and resentful because they can’t make any wishes themselves (just like the employees of Publishers Clearing House can’t enter the sweepstakes) and have to live in a bottle. So they start begrudging people their wishes, and looking for any technicality they can use to screw them over while still living up to the letter of the contract, as they are legally and magically obligated to do. When you’re dealing with a genie, I’ve found that it helps to dissolve a few Prozacs in some water and pour that in the bottle a couple weeks before you’re ready to make your wish. Your results may vary.

In addition, a lot of people have become careless about their wishing as a result of that whole horse-and-beggar thing, and assume that it doesn’t much matter what they actually wish for, because they’re just gonna get a horse, no matter what. The saying-writers are aware of this and want people to shape up, for their own good, so they came up with this new saying. The point is that you want to make real sure you’ve carefully thought about all the possible interpretations of your wish before you make it. Otherwise, you might wind up with some unintended and unpleasant consequences--like all your food turning to gold, so that you break out most of your teeth and then starve to death, for example.

And then Red One wanted to know about looking into the gift horse’s mouth. This is a particularly interesting one for me because it is actually intended to lead people astray, whereas most sayings attempt to warn you of potential pitfalls. (They are rarely successful, because nobody understands what they’re talking about, but at least they were well-intentioned and contributed to the paving of that bumpy road to Hell.)

Someone should write a countersaying like “Always look a gift horse in the mouth.” I’d do it if I had the time, but I don’t. The truth is, you can’t be too careful when it comes to a gift horse. There’s a long tradition of using gift horses to inflict pain and suffering by hiding stuff inside them, like Trojans or WMDs. But if you get a flashlight and look down inside the thing, you can see what’s hidden in there and make an informed decision as to whether it’s in your best interests to accept the horse or not. So the horse terrorists came up with this saying to try and convince people that it was impolite to look inside a horse you’re offered, so they’d be embarrassed to check him out until they got home, and by then it’s too late. You should never accept a horse from a stranger without looking in its mouth. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to put on some gloves and check out the other end while you’re at it.