FRESH SNOW & SPARE CHANGE - Muddy, Mike, and the Magical Mechanical Horse

I stepped outside for whatever reason I might have stepped outside for, to find scenic Manchester NH covered with a fresh blanket of snow. I noticed something peculiar on the walkway. Little holes about the size of a quarter dotting the snow. One here, a couple there. Could it have been? No, not in Manchester. "Well something strange happened here last night". So I ran thru the previous evenings events.

Mike stopped by and we had a couple beers. Then we headed to the Palace Theater to see the Muddy Waters All-Stars show. It was a complete gas. Toni Lynn Washington opened up and it was instant love for Mike. Even she felt it. The Muddy players came on and as the energy continued to climb, Mike and I climbed the walls. The show ended and the two of us weren't finished. If there is such a thing as too much fun Mike and I were having it, and apparently its against the law in NH. For some reason some one called the cops on us. We were headed for the door when some one pointed and said "there they are". No need to turn around to see who "they" were. Knowing that cooler heads prevail in situations like this, I spoke up. "Hey man, we're almost out. Just let us go. No harm no foul". Much to my surprise they let us go. So back to my place for a couple more beers. "Hey Mike I 've got an idea". So we hopped in his car and headed up to where we worked.

At the time we were working over nite doing a store remodel, and as many stores do this one had a coin operated horse ride out front. Each nite before we would go in to work I would hop on the horse and drop my quarter in. This nite however I didn't want to ride the horse, I wanted to take it home. Somehow we managed to get enough of this animal in the trunk of his Mazda so that it could travel the mile or so without falling out. So back at my apartment we are carrying this beast up the few steps to my porch, laughing uncontrollably. The outside lites flick on and the door opens and there stands my landlord. "Whats going on?" Mike quite alertly replied, "I work for this amusement company and we had been storing this at my house. I needed to get it out but I could only do it while my daughters are sleeping or else they would try to stop me" or however he worded it. So my landlord held open the doors as we carried it into my apt.

Having considered all of this I realized what those holes were. Knowing that I would be doing the laundry at some point that year I went around and gathered up all of the quarters that had fallen into the snow, freed from the deep dark recesses of this painted pony by all the jostling. A week or so later I called Mike and told him I had to get rid of it. You see it had these fiery eyes that would stare at me with a look of condemnation. Oh the guilt!