The Nightmare Before Halloween (?)

If you follow me on social media (aka are not a cave troll EMMA), you probably saw this beautiful, beautiful picture last week. 

all the pretties

I've never had much in grey before, but I was clicking around the Riding Warehouse site (danger Will Robinson) and I found that the Noble Outfitters cowl neck shirt I've wanted forever. I try not to buy black shirts because I normally buy blue (or blue) everything, so I got it in grey. But that was only $27! And free shipping at $50! 

So then I looked at Roeckl gloves and they had black, dark brown, light tan, and grey. I didn't want the first two colors because my biggest problem with gloves is losing them and I have nothing tan but omg there's a grey shirt in my cart! 

And of course, now that I had two grey things, there were visions of this perfect dressage queen outfit dancing in my head. All I need was grey polos. I already have a black pad with grey trim! And black bridles! And omg my iridescent stirrups would be the perfect color pop. Found some grey polos, chucked them in the cart, got a $10 off coupon, and waited 48 hours for my prizes to show up. 

When they did, I noticed that the polos were labelled "grey ombre", which seemed cool. Ombre is super in right now I think (isn't it?). In my head, they were going to be gorgeous--a subtle fade from black to grey up the leg. Omg. Can you even? I cannot. 

Cough.

And I promptly skipped out to the barn to put them on. Which was when I found out that for no very good reason, the "ombre" was simply a 12" pattern of black to greyish... and when you wrap it...

nooooooooo

You get a freaking Tim Burton zebra, not an understated-but-edgy, deeply sophisticated interpretation of traditional dressage style.

Yeah I'll say it again. Tim. Burton. Zebra. 

It was horrifying. It was also dusk, so I thought maybe if I threw him on the lunge and took pictures, the god-awful stripes would sort of blend into a uniform steel grey or something. 

I took a gorgeous silhouetted shot of Courage cantering past the sunset, and yeah, all I can see is his freaking zebra legs.

still nope

I tried to hold off making a decision on them, but the next day when I came out the the barn and had to choose between neatly-rolled TBZ grey polos and re-rolling a gross, dirty brownish set of supposedly white polos that needed a wash desperately, I didn't even hesitate. And I was at the barn alone with no one to impress.

he's embarrassed

So uh. It's a good thing Alyssa is a Tim Burton fan because these are definitely not staying in the collection.