award-winning cockroaches and beached manatees

However, while we were in Fort Worth for the cowboy’s “Sadde Boy” competition, we bunked in the horse trailer. (No, not WITH the horse…the back 9/10 is the horse part, the front 1/10 is “living quarters”) I use the term “living quarters” very VERY loosely. It was akin to sleeping in an aluminum shoebox on wheels. The floor section, shaped like the state of Nevada, only had enough room for Kevin’s military-style cot, the step stool, and one standing human. As you can see from the picture, the interior has been gutted, so the walls were bare except for the lovely remnants of brown wood glue. Everytime we turned on the light it threw a breaker. Our “camping spot” was on the gravel parking lot wedged between dozens of $200K motor homes.  We looked like the redneck MIssissippi cousins.

One aspect of the weekend I found particularly enjoyable was the 2-block hike to the bathroom located upstairs and inside the dormitory of the Fairground Swine Building of the Will Rogers Equestrian Center across the street from the National Cowgirl Museum.  Yee. Haw.  When I first stepped into the dark, abandoned concrete shower, which was creepy enough to be the setting where my horror movie doppleganger will die gruesomely,  I was startled by an enormous hog left behind from last weekend’s judging – no wait, that’s just a prize-winning cockroach. He and I did NOT get along. It was a quick shower.

The most entertaining part of the weekend, for those lucky enough to witness it (my 14-year-old son), was me, trying to get into the sleeping bunk of the trailer. Even with the step stool, I was only chest-high to the metal platform. After numerous and wildly unsuccessful attempts to fling my leg up onto the platform, I finally had Kevin stand on his cot, and lift the air mattress up to the ceiling. This allowed me to bend to a 90-degree angle, then roll my entire body onto the platform under the air mattress, much like an injured manatee rolling herself onto the beach. I then spun the opposite direction until I was against the wall, allowing Kevin to drop the mattress. At this point I got onto my hands and knees and crawled onto the mattress. Lying down, there was a good 7 inches between my face and the ceiling. Now to get undressed. Uh oh.  I couldn’t lift my legs – no room. Tried lying in a fetal position and wiggling. No luck with that either. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to manage the removal of my clothing. Why didn’t I get into my pj’s BEFORE I clamored up there? I DON’T KNOW. But I sure as heck wasn’t getting back down and then up again! So I called down to Kevin,
“Kevin, help me pull my pants off.”
“Yeah, right, mom.”
“Please, Kevin, I can’t do it.”
“Like that’s gonna happen. I don’t think so.”
“But Kev, I need help!”
“Suck it up and sleep in your clothes, mom!”
“Kevin, please please.” (Imagine a whiny, cartoony voice at this point.)
Kevin begins to giggle hysterically at the thought of my not having enough room to perform this function for myself, and at the audacity that I would even dare ask his help with undressing. Then, of course, there was the mental image of him actually helping me with this, which, I have to confess, was really really funny.
“Keeeeevvvvviiiinnnn, pleeeeeaaaaassssseeee!!!!!”
More giggling. This time from both of us.
This went on for about 20 minutes until we were in tears.

After we fell into a good sleep, probably from the exhaust fumes of all the other motor homes, we were awakened by an 8.3 earthquake – a crash, a jolt and the sound of breaking glass.  Oh wait, that was just the cowboy backing his truck INTO our trailer. Luckily, the only thing he broke was his passenger side mirror.

Extreme Mustang Makeover – reservations for next year have already been secured at the Hyatt Regency downtown Fort Worth.