Steer Riding Column

Does being thrown off a wild beast sound appealing? I thought so too. Contrary to popular belief, it is not quite as swell as it would appear. 

If you are not from a place where overalls are the height of fashion or having a belt buckle bigger than your face makes you the hippest kid on the play ground, steer riding is a foreign concept. In my youth, I was among the blessedly ignorant. In only 2.3 seconds last weekend at the Spirit Rodeo, that innocence was stolen. 

 

Okay. This belt buckle is actually awesome, it has an mp3 player in it. 

One day, as I talked myself into choking down the salty watered down soup that I had naively paid almost three dollars for, an overzealous student service minion bounced on over to where I was inopportunely located and asked me if I wanted to ride a steer.

Wrangled in by the fact that they were having serious trouble locating females and I would get a free tee shirt, I said sure. 

After I signed my life away and trudged to my next class, it began to occur to me what I had agreed to do. 

I had volunteered to ride an animal, but not just any animal, an undomesticated, bucking beast. I am from a city (not a town) just outside of Seattle. I ride public transportation, not bovines. 

The vast majority of animals I have encountered have either been neutered or on a plate. 

After my initial freak-out, I conveniently forgot about what I had agreed to, that was until the great and dreadful day finally snuck up on me, as great and dreadful days always do. 

The closest I have ever come to attending a rodeo is the movie Fifel Goes West. I had no comprehension of what to expect. Apparently no one took this significant fact into account, because I was fourth to ride. Once I was strapped into some serious protective gear, I stumbled onto the platform.

The steer looked at me and I looked and the steer; and that was when I knew it was time to start writing a will. I found the nearest person and hysterically began giving away everything I owned.

The very hardened, tough looking cowboy responsible for my mounting the animal was not amused by my mini conniption fit. He looked at me, spit, and then said, “Are you going to cry?”

I may have been scared to death, but there was no way I was going to admit that to John Wayne’s hostile evil twin. 

This is pretty much what he looked like. By the way, I stole this off a blog called " A scout masters blog" What is it about scouting, john Wayne, Ronald Regan and calendars that combine all of the aforementioned elements that every republican male over age 40 love so much?

I stammered that no, I was not going to cry, and I mounted my steer.

The 2.3 seconds that followed were the longest of my life. 

As I was bucked off, pain exploded through my entire body. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t really feel my legs, and I am pretty sure I ingested some dirt. 

Of course, at this moment John Wayne’s other evil twin waltzes over to where I had seriously crashed and burned in front of over a thousand of my peers, and has the audacity to ask, “Are you okay?”

Was I okay? I was just forcefully thrown off a wild rakish monster. I wasn’t even entirely sure I was still alive. 

If it weren’t for the aforementioned fact that a thousand people were staring at me to see what I would do, I would probably still be lying in the earth, sucking in dirt at the Madison County Fairgrounds. 

Needless to say, I eventually got up and hobbled out of the arena, never to return. 

Lesson learned: unless you have a death wish, don’t let student service recruits talk you into anything.