Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Crazy HorseLady

I worked on a horse farm, many years ago. [and I used to say the best job I ever had was cleaning horse poo, cuz "horse poo doesn't pretend to be anything else." ] So long ago, I had forgotten how odd horse people are. Probably because for the first 20 years of my life, I was a horse person, and I seemed perfectly normal, to me anyway . . .
So a couple of years ago while looking for a part time job, I take this job that I shoulda known from the interview wouldn't go well.
The ad says morning work, and I'm good for that.
On the phone, the lady tells me to come out at 10am, I'm thinking that's kinda late, but ok . . . I get there and she has told her hubby that she'll be back at 1pm. So I leave, and come back at 1pm. She's not back yet, and has told her hubby to tell me to come back the next day. Why, or why didn't I take that CLUE?
Next day at 10am, she's not there, again, and tells her hubby to tell me to come out the next day.
Next day, guess what? She's not there, AGAIN! Finally arrives at noon, telling me she had to go to the chiropractor a lot, ect. She drops in without an appointment and has to wait. She decides I should just come at 10 every day, and start without her. Considering I've managed a barn with 50 horses everyday all by myself when I was 15, not to mention training my own horses that I sold for a profit, I guess I can manage her 6.
She shows me the barn and on the way, her pet Ox. The Ox, she said loves her, and misses her if she doesn't talk to him at least once a day. She knows this because a pet psychic told her so. Why didn't I take THIS clue???
So we get down to biz, and finish going out to the barn where she shows me the horses, and what she wants done. Fine, I can do that. First she says we'll do this horse, and begins to take him out, "No, wait. Lets do this [other one] first." Puts him back and she walks and I follow her to another stall, where she begins to get him out, and then changes her mind again. It musta been the FOURTH one that she settled on, before completing the task of putting the hourse out into the adjoining pasture. By golly, there's another clue!
She changed her mind about everything so much, that I was worried she'd forget the last thing she told me, and then get mad when she found me doing it, instead of the 3rd thing she told me.
Now it happens [whooda thunk] that she is a cheapskate, and wants the stall cleaned sparingly, Oh I dunno, but I just never thought about "degrees of dirt" Silly me always just knew what was dirty and what wasn't, so appearently I needed her to tell me how dirty was the dirt SHE wanted removed. I found out why later. She wanted to replace about 2 shovels full of clean sawdust. In OUR barn we bought sawdust by the truckload, and I mean delivered by a dump truck. This lady buys it by the Pick-up truck load - in plastic bags the size folks buy for their pet hamsters, and the pet store delivers it to her like that. Now, I ain't a math major, but I'd hafta guess those bags of sawdust were more expensive than an ugly dump-truck pile would be.
I worked there almost a week and only saw her twice.
She was never there at 10am, and for the record, 10am is NOT morning work. Most cleaning and feeding on farms is finished well before 10am.
The next time I saw her, she had a horse chiropractor out.
I had to watch this. The HC had the lady put her hand on the horses back, while the HC held the lady's other arm out just like the "Tea Pot" song, you know, "I'm a little teapot, short and stout . . . tip me over and pour me out" and that's just what she did. The HC cranked down on the crazy lady's arm, and a l l e g e d l y the energy was transfered from the crazy lady to the horses spine, therefore adjusting it. The bill was about $300 [yeah, so how do I get in on this action?]
After a whole week of my time [if you include waiting time, and when I had to leave and come back], adding up to a whole $65, the crazy lady told me she couldn't afford me, and she'd have to let me go, and would pay me the following week.
She never did.
but I saw her once at the post office. I was about to say "Hi!" but she quickly turned and went the other way. Now, I am a forgiving person, lifes too short to hold a gruge, ya know? Besides, if I am deserving of restitution, I believe that God will give it to me. So wasn't going to mention it. I found it highly amusing that she was embarassed to be owing me a mere $65. Not embarassed enough to give it to me, of course. LOL

Months later, I was chatting with a girl I knew who had a couple of horse, and she was mentioning what roads she rode on. I told her it sounded like the area where this crazy lady that I once worked for lived. When she asked the name, and I told her, she said "Oh yeah. That's Crazy Pat, and that's just what everyone calls her" and as it turns out she owes a lot of barn cleaning folks money. Seems to pay the pet psychic's and pet chiropractor's, though.
Makes me think there's some sorta Crazy code, ya know where crazies don't stiff each others bills?
No kiddin.