Not Horsing Around

Here’s another morsel of a post to tide you over until I get my act together and finish one of the many longer entries currently languishing in my drafts folder. I keep telling myself that today’s the day I’ll produce a mini-masterpiece for this blog. Today, however, is not that day, so I present you with this anecdote instead.

Yesterday morning, I was at the library “working”/reading a book on the cultural history of sewing, as one does. Mid-paragraph, I was distracted by an eerie sensation and a pungent waft of Axe body spray. I looked up to see a woman standing by the elevators, head pointed in my direction.

I suspected that her eyes were boring straight into me, but I couldn’t confirm it since she was wearing sunglasses. I chided myself for being so uptight. Surely she was simply admiring the sunny sky visible through the floor-to-ceiling window; I should let her enjoy marvelling at the miraculously beautiful weather in peace. I was nonetheless unable to regain focus on the fascinating text in which I had been absorbed mere seconds earlier. Something was amiss.

A minute or two later, she confidently strode over.

“Hi, honey,” she said. This did not bode well.

“I was just examining you.”

Though it was a little comforting to confirm that I can and should trust my instincts, I was, as you might imagine, very creeped out. I thus nodded, half-smiled in a noncommittal manner, and gave the universal “I don’t want to engage” signal (looking at one’s phone). She didn’t get the hint.

“You know the bump at the back of your neck?” she continued, reaching out to touch me. To her credit, she noticed me recoil and touched her neck bump instead of mine. “And the bones on the sides of your face”—here she stroked her mandibles—”and all the way down your forehead?”—now she drew a line from her hairline to the tip of her nose.

“You need to inject horse hormones into the cartilage at all those points.” She paused for the briefest of moments.

“Male horse hormones.”

I’m no longer surprised to receive unsolicited and often off-the-wall guidance from strangers, but this made even me question humans’ ability to mind their own business.

Whether because my patience very rapidly grew thin or because I’m developing better strategies and skills, I didn’t default to how I usually react in situations like this one: by squirming in discomfort as I allow my would-be saviour to finish trying to cure me by way of religion, alternative medicine, or both. I also didn’t react as I was sorely tempted to: by saying that I only accept medical advice from my veterinarian. Instead, I politely but firmly cut her off, informing her that I had to get back to my “work.”

She shot me a look oozing disdain but retreated while muttering something under her breath.

Did I Google male horse hormones until it was time to go home? Yes, of course I did. Will I have male horse hormones injected into my neck bump, mandibles, and forehead?

My response to that question is a resounding “neigh.”