{"id":1199,"date":"2011-01-14T10:19:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T17:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2011-01-14T15:35:45","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T22:35:45","slug":"never-buy-a-trick-mule-over-the-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1199","title":{"rendered":"Never Buy a Trick Mule over the Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Never buy a trick mule over the phone.<\/p>\n

Was finishing a conversation with a horse buyer\u2014I needed a couple of saddle horses for summer camp\u2014when the buyer asked if I wanted a mule.<\/p>\n

“And why would I need a mule?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“Well, he can do tricks,” was the answer. “And the price is right.”<\/p>\n

As it turned out Henry could do one<\/em> trick. If you grabbed the saddle horn and gave it a shake, the mule would lie on his side and play dead.<\/p>\n

Useful, I suppose, if you’re making a film in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

But “useful” is not the word that came to be associated with Henry. “Trouble” was a more accurate descriptor.<\/p>\n

Henry could bite and kick, activities that caused at least one wrangler to strike back. Turns out Henry’s head was stronger than Brian’s hand. The X-ray showed a clear break.<\/p>\n

But that wasn’t the worst thing my trick mule did. In our rodeo arena we had a V-shaped turnstile in the corner, designed so that two-legged animals (wranglers and campers) could pass through, but not four-legged\u00a0 ones.<\/p>\n

No one explained the limitation to Henry.<\/p>\n

Still don’t know how he made it through. Just know the fence and saddle were never the same.<\/p>\n

Henry? He survived, as did the startled rider who jumped off just in time. And I learned a valuable lesson.<\/p>\n

Never buy a trick mule over the phone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never buy a trick mule over the phone. Was finishing a conversation with a horse buyer\u2014I needed a couple of saddle horses for summer camp\u2014when the buyer asked if I wanted a mule. “And why would I need a mule?” I asked. “Well, he can do tricks,” was the answer. “And the price is right.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}