Horse snobs

Not much annoys me more than horse snobs.  I met one today, and she ran pretty true to form.  I was at the pet store getting my kids some new hermies (that's hermit crabs for you not in-the-know people).  We're down to three hermies and with a 20 gallon tank, that is just not enough to keep us entertained.  They were out of normal sized hermies and only had some African kind of herms.  They were like regular hermit crabs, but pumped up on steroids or something. Let me just say I'll be handling them with gloves for a while.  Yowsers.  I've been wanting a bearded dragon for a while too, even trying to con the soon-to-be birthday boy into wanting one for his birthday (nope, the traitor wants a DS) so the pet store employee and I got to talking about animals of different kinds, and as I usually do, I turned the subject from whatever was at hand (bearded dragons in this case) around to horses. 

I told her in my fake modest voice that I didn't know much about reptiles because my forte' was horses.

"I have horses too," she responds.

I perk up.  "Really?"  I ask. "How many?"  Not that I didn't believe her or anything. And not that I would challenge her, but you know, this is an important question.  "I have five."  I don't really.  There are five in the family, sure, but my girls claim theirs and I'm left with the plain red ones, Blitz and Diva. 

"Well, I have three."  She sounds sort of challenging there.   Hmmm...  I eyeball her a minute, wondering if she's telling me an untruth.  Nope, she pulls out her iphone (newer than my Blackberry, darnitall) and starts to show pics.  She has pictures of miniatures on there and proceeds to tell me that minis are small horses.  No kidding, really?  I never would have guessed, even if I hadn't already known.  I'm starting to not like her so much. 

When I could get a word in there edgewise, and after I'd ordered Scotlyn to go to the car to get her phone (with pictures of Moonshine (and after I'd made a snarky comment about not having time to take pictures of my horses on my phone because I was busy doing important things like educating my children including my son that got into college a year early on an honors scholarship)) I started bragging on how Scotlyn used her birthday money to save a colt from slaughter and was nursing him back from the brink of death.  I wasn't lying exactly, just...embellishing a touch.  She cut me off!  Cut. Me. Off!

"Did you give him Strongid yet?"

"Yeeessss,"  I answered in my annoyed voice when someone has crossed my personal boundaries by insulting my intelligence.  "He's finishing up his fifth day of Power today." 

"What's 'Power'?"  HA!   Hahahahahaha!!!  She doesn't even know what Strongid Power is, and she's trying to tell me what to do to save my deathly ill, nearly slaughtered colt?  She don't know nothing! NOTHING! Then she says, "Now you need to Ivermectrin Gold."  Really?  Is that a fact?  Why? So we can rip his innards clean out of him?  So his innards can be his outtards?  You're some kind of Einstein, ain'tcha huh? 

So now I use my you're-an-idiot-that's-too-stupid-to-convert-oxygen-to-carbon-dioxide voice on her.  "You can't use two different wormers that close together.  Especially when I used a five day wormer on him." 

"Well, I know that.  You have to wait a month or it could kill him."  She looks at me like I shouldn't be allowed to raise baby snails and maybe she should take the hermit crabs back.  By now Peter has taken hold of my arm and is not so gently leading me toward the door. 

There may have been some other comments like:

• Oh, you keep your horses in your backyard?  I keep mine in a reputable stable.  I pay $300 a month per horse so I have a well-maintained arena available to work my reining and/or pleasure and/or barrel horse in at all times. I don't want them just sitting around doing nothing.
• And maybe I had to return with something like:  Well, I like to be with my horses for companionship and not just for what they can do for me.
• I have a horse worth $10,000.  All of mine are registered Quarter Horses.  What do you have?
• Mine are priceless.  I don't believe in putting pricetags on my family.  (said with a big smile and lots of teeth.)
• I show my horses and they win at everything.
• I only ride my horses on trail rides.  (no more big smile)
• I know a big trail ride coming up tomorrow you could go on. 
• Actually, we've found we enjoy going as a family instead of in large groups.
• Oh, your horses don't behave well, huh? 

And that was said as Peter forcibly propelled me out of the store.