The Joys of Living Alone

Apollo wouldn't let Tanner in the run-in yesterday during the snowstorm. I glanced out the window to see Tanner standing there with half an inch of snow on his head and back, icicles hanging from his chin, and snow glistening on his eyelashes. So I thought I'd be really nice and bring Tanner into the barn and put him in a toasty warm stall with plenty of hay...Tanner did not think this was a nice idea. He started flipping out and donkey-kicking the barn walls. He also donkey-kicked me in the ass as I was trying to get out of the stall.

As I dove out of the stall, I was thinking, "Oh my god, I'm paralyzed, I can't feel my butt!" Walking around a little bit proved that I could feel my butt all too well...it was gonna turn into quite the colorful bruise. (And the whole walking thing should've also been a big clue that I wasn't paralyzed.) Then the fear turned to rage and I yelled at Tanner, telling him that if that's how he was going to behave, he was going back in the pasture to fend for his own damn self. I also may have muttered something about a glue factory.

And then when the rage drained away, the fear came back. I was so incredibly lucky that Tanner hit me in the one place where I could easily afford to take a kick [big butt joke here]. If he had hit me in the spine, or the kidney, or if I had been facing the other way and he got me in the groin, things would've been so much worse. If that had happened, what would I have done? I didn't have my cell phone on me. What if I lay paralyzed on the barn floor? When would someone think to come looking for me? I seriously thought about getting a LifeAlert.

It reminds me of an episode of 30 Rock:

Liz: Look, this is gonna sound really weird, but do you ever worry about choking to death alone in your apartment?

Gretchen: Oh it’s so weird that you would say that. I think about it all the time. I mean, you’d die. And they wouldn’t find you until your neighbor’s dog smelled you from the hallway.

Liz: Oh, yes, and they’d show a picture of you on New York One.

Gretchen: And it’s not just choking, ever since I turned thirty every time I get in or out of the bathtub I think in my head, “Careful…careful…”

This isn't a new thought to me, since I've lived alone before. However, there are more ways to be incapacitated on the farm and it's more remote. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be found until after the possums and crows had gotten to me. Or Fat Cat would start to eat me, since I heard on NPR that that had happened once to some guy who died alone in his house.

It's not very comforting to think about how long it would take for someone to find me. Who knows me well enough and cares enough to notice that I'm missing and start to get concerned? Who would call my family to see if they'd heard from me? Who would actually come looking for me? Other than coworkers during the work week, I don't have someone I contact every day. (Although after this blog post, my mom may start texting me every day to make sure I'm not lying somewhere being eaten by possums.)

Who knows, maybe Finch or Hobbes will turn into Lassie and run get help. Or maybe what I really need is a pig like Lulu, who plopped herself down in the middle of the road til a car stopped, then led the driver back to her owner who had had a heart attack. Then again, that Oregon farmer was eaten by his pigs, so...

This is such an uplifting post. Here is a picture of Finch and Nellie cuddling to make us all feel a little better.

[Side note: "They" say that you're not a real cowgirl until you've been thrown off, bitten, stepped on, and kicked. I can officially say I am a real cowgirl now.]