Recently I was having a discussion with a close family member and I said – lightly, jokingly – fuck you and the horse you rode in on and they said don’t talk about my mother like that. I assumed they meant it was a favorite phrase of their mother’s but upon further back and forth it came out that they believed the horse to be the mother. It was a metaphor I was told and after my objection to that interpretation I was informed I didn’t understand metaphors. Obviously I took great offense to this, I understand metaphors, I spend my life creating meaning where there is none, and I’ve never met a situation I’ve not read something into. But here, with this phrase, I’d always assumed it was an old timey throw back talking about the actual horse you rode in on. A high horse perhaps, but a horse. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on they repeated while making hand gestures from their private parts to emphasize their meaning. Had the saying been fuck you and the womb you crawled out of I could see, I said, which only proved their point they said since I was being literal. Oh really? Did you literally CRAWL out of your mother’s womb?! How advanced of you! This went on for some time and I did not make the best argument as the conversation ended with me explaining the rules of horse and pig, something they had managed to be oblivious to for sixty some years. I still can’t see the horse as the mother, I can’t. But the very fact that I could not, would not, even were I asked to come up with multiple meanings for the horse, makes this one of the greatest and most delightful conversations I’ve ever had.
In less delightful things, I now have a vegan child. They lecture me and make me watch documentaries where decapitated bodies continue moving while blood spills everywhere. They fill me in on all their latest research – endless research! – and they question me about my morals and ethics. They harass me about the ecosystem and its destruction, something for which, apparently, I am solely to blame. They made the switch at Thanksgiving, four years younger than I made my Thanksgiving switch to vegetarianism many moons ago. My vegan child claims to be more disgusted by vegetarians than meat eaters though their logic gets a little faulty here. I’m pretty sure they just think they’re poser vegans, weak willed and despicable. My phase lasted a year and I don’t think I ate one vegetable the entire time. I was worse than a poser vegan, I was a poser vegetarian. The child is much stronger than I was, or am – something I’m eternally grateful for – and I fear this phase will last much longer than mine. Pray for me.
gracieabrams
blakekathryn