I’ll be honest with you; I’ll be frank. This is my second rodeo and I still have no idea what I'm doing. And trust me, it’s not because I haven’t been trying. Let me start from the beginning.

I wasn’t born yesterday. I was born 7,897 days ago on June 21st, 1998 in the arms of my mother, whom we may refer to as an angel. Every single day without fail, I wake up on the right side of the bed, and every night I hit the hay (I take extra care to keep a fresh bale located near my head to ensure it receives a hearty slap each and every night). During the day, I hit the books with extraordinary vigor. I am sharp as a tack, I have a mind like a diamond, I have a short skirt and a long jacket. These are the keys to life. Yet here I am, at my second rodeo, and I still have absolutely no clue what I am doing. 

See, things started to go south a few years ago, really just straight down the drain. So I rolled up to my first rodeo, and figured everything would turn right around because that’s what rodeos are for. All my questions would be answered: Does existence have meaning? What makes a good life? How should I spend my waking hours for the next 60 years? I waited a day, a week, a fortnight after my first rodeo, waiting for my time to shine. As time went on, I started to feel real jaded. Then, suddenly, the answer came to me like a strike of lightning: I had only been to one rodeo! I must go to a second one. I knocked on wood, and set off. 

But here I am, at my second rodeo, watching some sort of four-legged animal run around these foreign brown cylinders (I was later told it was called a ‘horse’). People kept yelling some words I didn’t know, and trying to tame some other foreign beast by sitting on top of it. It was all very confusing. But I stayed, hoping my disorientation would not be for naught. 

When the rodeo finally ended, I waited patiently in the stands for the light at the end of the tunnel to appear. Two hours — four hours — later, and nothing had happened. Nothing had changed; I was still but a babe lost in the woods. The more I stewed, the more I recognized the treachery that was at hand. Played like a fiddle. Blasphemy. 

I went to two rodeos for fucks' sake. Boring, stinking like horse shit, rodeos. What the hell am I supposed to do now, if two rodeos wasn’t enough. Over my dead body will I attend another rodeo. Fat chance! 

I am not one to give up so easy, however. I will take stock of my resources, and formulate a game plan. As they say, I must get back up on the horse. Firstly, I shall find a horse, and get up on that motherfucker whether he likes it or not.