Brian Yells at Horses

One time I was driving the family around aimlessly probably to kill time until a sporting event, or in the unlikely hopes that the children would fall asleep and quit screaming at each other and trying to maim each other with whatever was in their reach from their car seats.

I stopped at a red light. To my left was a pasture filled with horses. They were standing there, munching the ground and looking stupid, and walking around pooping indiscriminately, as horses are prone to do. For no particular reason, I rolled down my window and yelled, "GIDDYUP!!" really loudly. The horses went bonkers and started running around and doing horse wheelies and whatnot.

This was unexpected and caused a lot of excitement, especially from the youngsters in the back. After that, whenever we'd drive by some horses, my son would shout at them, regardless of whether the windows were down or not.

Since he was pretty young, his pronunciation of "Horsies" came out sounding like "Foofies" so we got used to random exclamations from the back of "GIDDYUP FOOFIES!!" Sometimes there were foofies nearby, and sometimes not. Foofies became sort of incidental to the whole business of yelling really loud after a while.

So now, whenever I see a collection of horses, I always make sure to roll down my windows and shout "GIDDYUP FOOFIES!!" at them. This happens regardless of whether my kids are with me or not. Sometimes, when I'm in a particular mood, I add an "F" bomb as an adjective in there, just to spice things up.

This leads me to this morning. I was leaving the gym, feeling particularly strong and happy. Nearby the Lifetime Fitness in Savage, there is a random, fenced in field filled with a bunch of horses. I'm not sure why they're there, but there's a lot of them. So I came to the stop light, rolled down my window, and shouted, very loudly, "GIDDYUP YA FUCKIN' FOOFIES!!"

Right as I did that, a middle aged woman pulled up next to me. Her window was open because she was getting ready to flick a heater out the window. She looked at me with utter shock and disdain. Not wanting to feel embarrassed, I did the only thing I could think of. I said, "What are you looking at? Fuckin' foofie." Then I drove off laughing. I'm not sure what she thought of that whole confrontation, but I'm sure when she re-tells the story I will not be held in a positive light.

That's OK, I don't think screaming at a horse is against the law...