It's Boots and Chaps, It's Cowboy Hats

We are going to miss the rodeo. Day three was the most crowded, and we arrived to packed stands. Most of the events had top place finishes, with the cowboys, cowgirls and the animals performing masterfully. The steers often got the best of the ropers, and one poor cowboy got his head stomped by a bull after being thrown, and had to be carried away.

Cowboys, though... There is a reason why they are the subject of so many romance novels. So cute. Seriously--I felt like a total creep the whole time, but, dang. That's all I have to say about that (obviously not.)

After the events (during which a surprise grasshopper popped on my leg, eliciting a mini-scream-of fright, where upon it pinged over to Lizzie, and then back to me, until I realized it was only a grasshopper and not to be feared) we went to the dance, kicked up our heels a bit, and then meandered back to get drinks. There Erin struck up a conversation with a nice man who probably regretted talking to us, because somehow we ended up cheerfully commenting on how his blood type was the universal blood type, and that he'd probably wake up in a bathtub full of ice because we were going to steal his kidneys to sell on the black market. We reassured him that we really liked him, so we'd leave a phone within arm's reach. Then we invited him to come visit us in Boston. Strangely enough, he seemed interesting in coming up some time. (Honestly, if one tried to pick up the trail of conversation from point a to point harvesting your kidneys, I'm sure the whole matter would seem perfectly normal.)

We bid adieu to Brock (his name, really! I told him we needed more Brocks in MA) and then sloshed through the mud toward Erin's truck. On the way we saw a dude hanging with his friends, except his pants were at his knees, and he was peeing on the side of his truck. Questions:

a) Why are your pants down? Can't you pee through the zipper? You are a boy.

b) Why are you letting your business hang out in front of your dudely friends?

c) Why not use the toilet which is a two minute walk away?

Erin hooted at him with a jaunty "yee haw!" and I yelled "NICE PEE!"

When we got to our truck, we discovered that someone had picked up a wad of mud and horse shit and had hurled it (drunkenly, probably) at the passenger side window. It was stuck in a horrid, mucky blob to the window, so we crawled in carefully. Too bad I had the memory, as Erin would say, of a gold fish, and stuck my hand right in it while slamming the door shut after climbing out at Erin's folks' house. Ah, nothing like a handful of horseshit and mud to close out the rodeo. Yee haw.