It was a lovely summer morning. Kari and I were in the barnyard. We (I'm going to use that term loosely) were trimming horse hooves. We were taking a short break, and ,naturally, I wanted to impress her. I had a splendid idea. Absolutely brilliant. "Kari, so you see that cow right there?"

            "The one standing right there? Ok, yea."

            "Do you know she can actually be ridden?"

            "Really? That's neat."

            "Yea, watch this." I jumped up and ran quickly over to Kona, one of our young Holsteins, who was sitting sedately by the metal feeder, chewing her cud. Perfect, I thought, the metal feeder would make the ultimate mounting block. Ok, ya, I know. Cows aren't really supposed to be ridden, but when I was...say 10, I wasn't half big enough to just run out and saddle up a horse, yipikayay. Yea, no. So naturally, a cow was the next best thing. Now, don't you think I did any special training with Kona. Kona was just kind of a dog-horse-like-cow.  She loved attention and had always treated me like her calf, grooming me constantly and fondly pushing me around. Basically, she made a good horse cow because she wasn't the least bit afraid of people, wasn't easily spooked, and didn't mind having a teenage girl fooling around on her back.

            Anyway, like I said, Kona didn't usually spook. But every cow has its limits, so when I jumped up without warning and without thinking, onto her back...well...she got pretty startled and bolted. When you're on a cow's back, it's quite precarious, there's nothing to hold on to. You sure can't wrap your arms around their neck, you'd fall forward. So, there was one inevitable option...to fall off.

            So I did.

            Now, the metal feeder may have made a splendid mounting block, but is sure wasn't the ideal landing pad. Kona isn't what you'd call short and I must've banged just about every bone in my body one the way back to Earth and boy, did it hurt. I sat there in the dirt, feeling the bruises form and perceiving what a dunce I'd been. Poor Kari, she had to see the whole thing. Let me rephrase that: poor me, Kari had to see the whole thing. Now, Kari has been kicked off horses more than once and I'm sure she was expecting the worst. In fact, she told me she visualized having to carry a conked-out Caitlyn home, which wouldn't have worked too well considering her ankle was busted from being tossed off a horse previously. So, like a professional, poor Kari assessed the situation and attended to her fallen comrade. "Oh my gosh! Are you ok?!" Now, I get asked that question quite a lot. I get hurt a good bit. Everyone does. And my immediate response is always yes. It's kinda automatic. I feel that most people in this world are like that, no matter their predicament. But, I've noticed, there are a few who don't feel the need to assure you they're ok and feel very honest, they say no and sit there wincing. I don't like making people think I'm horribly mutilated so I just automatically say yes.

"Yea." I said. What I was really thinking was, oh no, I'm not ok, this hurts so bad. Holy cow I'm such an idiot. Why did I do that? Oh my gosh, I'm such an idiot. I just sat there for a second and closed my eyes. Then I got up and walked over to Kari, trying not to limp. I felt like a complete nincompoop. "Uh...sorry you  had to see that. She doesn't usually do that. Holy cow that was stupid."

"Wow," Kari said with relief, "I'm just glad you're ok. You disappeared behind the metal feeder and I thought you had hit your head and gotten knocked out!"

"Ya, thankfully no." I said and smiled sheepishly. I was so embarrassed. I had wanted to impress Kari and look at what I'd done...made a dunce of myself. Thank God, Kari is the sweetest person you'll ever meet and she was just happy I was ok. It was kinda awkward for a couple seconds. But the pain had gone down a good bit and I laughed. Kari laughed too. We laughed at lunch about it. We laughed at my house about it. We laughed everywhere about it. Really, that incident is one of the things that bonded us a lot. I started seeing Kari as more of a close friend than this strange adult I was super polite to and awkward around. We were too close for me to act like that...and all it took was a genuine love for horses and a toss off a cow.