Ruthlessly Exclude, Part The Second

True fact: I have never horse shopped before in my life. I have saddle shopped (hate, 0/10 do not recommend) and I was told horse shopping is worse.

Go horse shopping they said

However, when you're done with a relationship, basically anything not-that-relationship sounds like a good idea.

(This is why Roxie's mom was like WRITE A LIST NO TALKEE TIL LIST IS DONE because yeah. Objectivity, thy name is not SB.)

I also had a couple of goals:

1) Do not buy the first thing you fall in love with.

Ok make that one goal.

The first thing I looked at, I fell for HARD. WANT SO BAD. But it was not on the list. And remember, ruthlessly exclude. And not the first thing.

Then I looked at a bunch of other things.

one of each plz

I assure you, I was eminently rational about this entire process and did not one time stay up late into the night on the internet, debating putting down a deposit on a wildly inappropriate horse that I SUPER WANTED BECAUSE OMG I LOFF IT BACK OFF.

Well okay that happened several times too.

Anyways. I knew I needed a pretty specific horse, I knew said horse was probably going to be a word of mouth placement vs a random internet ad, and I knew that I could not be trusted to go look at the horse by myself.

skepticollie

As such, while I definitely fell (hard) down some internet rabbit holes (that were SO KYOOT) and spent waaaaaaaay too much time joining random facebook groups and obsessively reading ads. my search was actually focused.

I guess I had a second goal too:

2) I must be able to meet future poneh in person.

I chased down local contacts. Roxie's mom and Leah worked their connections. I planned a couple tentative viewing trips, then canceled them when things didn't shake out.

And then it happened! Roxie's mom was like I HAVE FOUND THE ONE and I was of course already in love because #emotionallyunstable is basically my life right now. But THE ONE checked all the boxes, even as verified by the trusted circle that knew what was on THE LIST and THE ONE was not ruthlessly excluded.

So I picked a show name and planned a road trip with a trusted friend...

catch a ride on the pandicorn express