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By Root 386 0

father would respond, “One, two, three, want!” Translated, the phrase means “fat chance.” Of course when Amy came into my life, I was eager to pass it forward. So now we are in Farm & Fleet, and as we pass the toy section she peels away from me. I turn to find her transfixed before a horrifying blister-packed horse-with-princess set. “Ohhh, it’s beautiful,” she says, turning her eyes up to me in that wide-open way that puts a lump straight in my throat. “I really, really want it!” She is heartbreaking in her sincerity. We adults work overtime to mask our desires, but a child just comes right out and tells you, and even when it’s a horrific piece of plastic crapola—or perhaps because it’s a horrific piece of plastic crapola—a child’s willingness to so nakedly admit they really, really want it literally brings tears to my eyes. Unfortunately for Amy, the tears do not wash away my resolve. “One, two, three, want!” I say, and depart for the checkout line.

When I get there, I turn and realize she hasn’t followed me. She is back there before the horse and princess, and she has her fists squeezed tight at her sides and her eyes shut and her little brow is furrowed with focus, and she is saying, over and over, “One, two, three, want! One, two, three, want!”

The poor kid thinks it’s an incantation.

It is hard for me sometimes, to watch this girl—the one who loves to go rambling in my old pickup truck, the one who happily cuts up dead deer on the kitchen table, the one who lugs firewood—stare all googly-eyed at blond plastic princesses, but there you are. Sometimes all the academic feminism in the world can’t compete with a chintzy tiara. And truth be told, her interest in the princess worries me less than her interest in the horse. The first thing Amy showed me the day I met her was her collection of plastic horses, and her fascination with everything equine has only grown since then.

I fear my daughter is Horse People.

You know Horse People. I am not talking about those loftily behatted julep-sippers of the Triple Crown circuit. Those are horsey people. Whereas horse people are generally solid citizens with day jobs. You see them behind the counter at the bank, or working reception at the doctor’s office, or hanging your drywall, and you don’t suspect a thing. But their closets are full of Wranglers and pearl snap shirts, and their backyards are circumscribed with electrified white poly tape, and they will sometimes lapse into talk of snaffles and gymkhana, and somewhere out back is a round-nosed trailer with green windows. These are otherwise rational folks who nonetheless devote an unbalanced preponderance of resources to keep in their possession a large four-legged animal whose one big trick is the ability to transform overpriced hay bales into road apples. I understand I am treading in dangerous territory here, similar to offending cat people (let’s skip right over ferret people, shall we?), but where I was raised, superfluous horses were known as “hayburners.” I also admit I once had a bad experience on a horse named Warts.

I didn’t give in there at Farm & Fleet. I may get the emotional sniffles, but I do not surrender. Having said that, I am aware that under the right circumstances a horse can serve as the intersection where joy and responsibility meet. In short, it is highly likely that I will one day own a dang horse.

In the meantime, she can have a guinea pig.

We have told Amy that the guinea pig will be her responsibility, and that how she executes her commitments specific to the pending Cavia porcellus will have a direct reflection on the possible future expansion of animal husbandry commitments up to and possibly including the acquisition of an equine division. We didn’t put it in those exact words. Actually, I did, but Anneliese sent me off to sort socks before I really got rolling.

Amy doesn’t know it, but we’ve already procured the pig. My sister-in-law Barbara is part of a multistate rodent rescue ring. I am not kidding, and if you are tempted to snicker or make jokes about the Underground Rodent Railroad,