The Pony Needs Something To Do
“There is nothing to do today,” the Pony complained.
The Pony often complained about the status of the day. Usually, there was too much to do, sometimes there was nothing to do, and every once in a while there was just enough to do -- which the Pony didn’t like either because having just enough to do always made the Pony feel like she could have done more or she should have done less.
The Pony kicked the dirt and whipped her hair but that didn't take up as much time as she had hoped.
The Pony was starting to get discouraged when just off in the distance she saw her friend, the Field Mouse, standing on a fence post and strumming a guitar.
"Welp, this is new... Maybe this will be something?" The Pony thought as she ran over excited to chat with the Mouse.
The Pony was always excited to see the Field Mouse. He was often hard to find because he was very small and also tended to be quite reserved and flighty. But, she mostly liked the Mouse because he was always doing something new and odd and that at least kept things interesting in their friendship.
As the Pony got close to the Mouse she could hear the Mouse strumming his guitar to the tune of "Home On the Range."
"Well, howdy! Is that the Pony, I reckon?" The Mouse asked, still strumming.
"No, it's a sea lion." The Pony replied, sarcastically.
The Mouse chuckled and reached into his bag. He produced a small twig and then a regular-sized Zippo lighter. The lighter was brass, well-worn, and solid. It was also way too big for one Mouse to use efficiently. The Mouse struggled to set the lighter upright, then he struggled to open the lighter, then he struggled to light the lighter on top of everything else.
The Pony watched this process unfold very slowly. It took a lot of time to get the lighter to work and the Pony wasn't sure why the Mouse had stopped their conversation cold to go through this whole show.
At last, the Mouse took the small twig he had pulled out of his bag and lit the end of it with the lighter. The Mouse sat back, put on a cowboy hat, and pretended to smoke the twig like a cigarette.
"I'm bored, what are you up to today?" The Pony finally asked.
The Mouse most liked the Pony because she wasn't dismissive of any ideas. The Pony would always support an idea until it fizzled out or blossomed into something great. She wasn't one to cut ideas off from the get-go no matter how weird or ridiculous they were.
"Well, Pony, today I reckon that... Well I'm fixin’ to… I’mma gonna… well I’m gonna learn how to be a cowboy I reckon, I reckon indeed," the Mouse mused as he strummed his guitar and took a drag off his twig.
The Pony was surprised. She had never thought of a Mouse as a cowboy and she wasn't quite sure if the Mouse was pulling it off or not. But, to each their own the Pony thought.
"What do cowboys do?" She asked.
"Well," The Mouse explained. "From what I understand, cowboys sing country music songs, use Zippo lighters to light their cigarettes and sometimes they build fences... Those are the parts that I'm focusing on, I reckon."
"Did you build this fence?" The Pony asked, impressed.
"Not technically. But, it doesn't seem like anyone else put their name on it so for now, I'm going to claim it."
That's definitely not how building a fence works, thought the Pony. You can't just claim you built it because you don’t know who actually built it.
"So, what else is there to being a cowboy?" The Pony asked the Mouse.
To be totally frank, the Mouse had no idea what being a cowboy entailed other than the three things he already mentioned. In fact, the Mouse hadn't even planned on being a cowboy today. Earlier, the Mouse had seen the Pony off in the distance and could tell by the number of times the Pony had whipped her hair and stomped her feet that she was bored. The Mouse knew that the Pony was prone to bouts of ennui so he thought maybe this cowboy schtick would be interesting enough to occupy some of the Pony's time.
But the Mouse grossly overestimated how much he knew about cowboys and how well he could improvise his way around being a cowboy. He was quickly running out of ideas. The Mouse started to panic.
"Do you want to get ice cream?" Asked the Mouse.
The Pony had never turned down an invitation for ice cream and she wasn't going to start now.
"Absolutely! Do you know of a good spot somewhere around here, cowboy?"
"I think..." The Mouse shook his head trying to erase what he just said. "I mean... I reckon, if we follow the horizon, the stars will lead us to our destination."
"Well hop on partner!" The Pony yelled.
The Field Mouse jumped on the Pony and began to strum his guitar. The two spent the rest of the day together, occupying their time by walking towards the horizon, singing country music songs, and searching for some ice cream.
