I retire from the cowboy life

When I was a kid, every supermarket had one of those coin-operated horsey rides that you could ride for a quarter, out by the front doors. Or maybe it was a dime; I don’t know. Money didn’t matter much to me at the time.

Flared plastic nostrils and wild eyes: it was a thrill to ride them, if you could put out of your mind that you were riding a rocking, electromechanical pony in the green fluorescent chill of the supermarket and not a wild mustang in the blazing southwestern desert, and failing that, simply because your mother had relented and indulged you with that quarter.

They don’t have those horses anymore. But we’re pretty busy these days.