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Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Force a Horse

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So this one time, when I decided to get married, I informed my husband that it would be convenient to announce our engagement the following week when both our families got together for Christmas and without pausing for breath I followed that with the firm request that we seal the deal ending his freedom that coming Mother’s Day weekend.  In the ensuing pause complete with eyebrow gesturing I reassured him: “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.  You just have to show up at the end of the aisle!” (Oh, is that all?!?)

My husband responded by asking if he was going to be allowed to propose first and sort of hinted that he’d really been on more of a 10-year-plan… My response was direct: “Sure you can propose! As long as you get to it in the next week, before I tell everyone we’re getting married.”

In retrospect, I probably could have been a little more diplomatic.

Having always been an excellent student, I should have remembered Newton’s third of motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Well.

About a month before the appointed beheading of my husband’s freedom, my dear, amazing, patient husband that had agreed to my demands cheerfully told me about a horse that he had found and how perfect she was; she was the horse he’d been trying to find for years and he was very interested in buying her… what did I think?

What did I think??

Um… well, I had a lot of thoughts but they pretty much all boiled down to… well… no?!?! Obviously??

So, naturally, a few days later… Chris bought the horse!  He was super excited.

“Megan! I bought the horse!  Her name is Reh-Beh-ka!” (say that the way I wrote it.)

I don’t know if I was more shocked, more pissed, or just plain stunned.  But what kind of name was Reh-Beh-ka?

“Spell that.”

“What?”

“Spell that!”

“Spell what?!”

“The name!  The name of your damn horse!”

So he spelled out: “R-e-b-e-k-a.”

And I calmed replied: “So… Rebeca.  HER name is Rebeca.  But spelled with a ‘K’ but correctly pronounced like the normal ‘Rebeca.'”

“Um…”

And then not so calmly: “You BOUGHT a HORSE and you don’t even KNOW her NAME?!?!”

“So, you’re upset about this?”

“Uh… you think?!?”

The first people I saw after this major purchase was my seamstress/wedding gown team.  Two wonderful women: one lovely lady hailed from India and the other was a petite little lady who creatively made the matching accessories for the big day.  I somewhat theatrically marching into their small, well-ordered shop, flopped down into a chair and exclaimed, “You will NEVER believe what my soon-to-be-husband did today!” And I relayed the story. Mandi’s mouth hung open but Sonia asked “Oh! Is your husband Indian??” I scrunched my face in confusion and answered that he was definitely Caucasian… you know, the super Polish kind of white.   Apparently there is an Indian tradition involving the use of a horse to transport the groom to the wedding and Sonia was very excited to think that we were incorporating some of her culture into our big day.

Not knowing anything about this facet of wedding culture due to being a pasty white girl, I thought this might be sort of a Runaway Bride thing and I asked if this was the Indian version of the “getaway car”?

Nope.  Not so much.  But we all laughed at my interpretation and I shook my head and sighed.  Physics had caught up with me.

I was their last appointment of the day.  It was definitely time for some wine!

We ended up calling her Reba.

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