It’s late Sunday night. You’re driving home after a long day of feis-ing. The accordion music won’t stop echoing through your brain. The kids are cranky. The wife exhausted. You missed the game in which your team scored the most points in the history of the NFL. And tomorrow, you’ve got to pull a double shift just to pay for all of this fun.
Bleary eyed, you stop at a gas station for the last fill up before making it home. As you watch the gas pump bill of sale spin faster than a Las Vegas slot machine, you catch sight of the man across the pump from you.
His shoulders are slumped, face drawn, eyes hollow and empty. You recognize the look immediately—FDS.
Another feis dad!?
But wait, something’s different about him. The sheer and utter hopelessness in his eyes goes beyond what you’ve seen from other feis dads.
You wonder what could cause such misery and pain?
Then you spot it … the one thing that has sucked more men’s souls dry than disco music, chick flicks and 2 for 1 shoe sales at Dillard’s combined …
A horse.
In less than a second your eyes take in the guy’s entire story. He’s a horse dad. Driving his big, gas guzzling truck (with an even bigger horse trailer) back from a horse show with his wife and daughter.
You know you shouldn’t, and you feel bad about it, but you can’t help yourself from breaking into a knowing grin—someone’s got it worse than you!
You can feel the guy’s pain, because you used to be a horse dad. And as much as you complain about being a feis dad, you know that being a horse dad can be 1,000 times worse.
You think back to before your daughter started Irish Dance. She was no different than every other girl between the ages of 2 days to 116 years old—she was infatuated with horses.
“A pony!” she would cry every time she saw a horse. Or a cow. Or a dog. Or a brown car. Or anything that was larger than a quarter and smaller than a cruise ship. It was ponies and horses, 24/7, with no holidays off for good behavior.
She did that smile thing and before you could see your therapist, you bought a horse, truck and trailer, and gazzilions of dollars in equipment and show gear—all for a child who had just started using the “big girl’s” potty.
Remembering the two years of horse dad torment, you thank your lucky four-leaf clover that your daughter switched to Irish dance.
For all those feis dads out there thinking they’ve got it bad, here’s how it can be worse. Much worse.
Think the solo dress is expensive? That ain’t nothing compared to what you’re going to shell out to compete in the horse show circuit. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Horse. Yep, gotta have one (or two, possibly three and why not four?) of those. A cheap show horse will run you about ten grand. Middle of the road is twenty to forty thousand. And if you’re going to get something good, go ahead and start selling your internal organs now.
- Truck and trailer. How the heck are you going to get to the horse show without a truck and trailer? Ride? Not hardly. An inexpensive two-horse trailer will set you back anywhere from $5K to $10K. Then, there are the nice ones which not only haul your horse, but will house all of your family as well. These “live-in” trailers can actually save you money since you can sleep right next to your beloved horse at the show (flies, horse poop, dirt and all), except you STILL have to pay for a stall for the horse since THEY aren’t allowed to stay in the trailer—only your poor soul. You don’t have to spend money for a hotel room. Yep, just in case you didn’t have enough of the horse during the day, you can sleep in the horse trailer right next to your best bud. Too bad these puppies cost more than you make in five years.
- Tack. Saddle, bridle, bits, brushes, pads, fly masks, halters, combs, etc. All this little stuff can add up big time. For example, a nice saddle can cost you about as much as a solo dress and it can’t even be cut up and used for garage rags once your daughter is done with it.
- Show clothes. These are about as gaudy as solo dresses and only slightly less expensive.
- Food. It’s cheaper just to feed the horse dollar bills.
- Vet bills. Enough said.
- All of the concussions, broken arms, legs and ribs. And those are just your injuries from loading and unloading a thousand pound animal who doesn’t really want to go for a trailer ride.
- Hauling all of this stuff. You think your daughter’s dress and make-up bags are bad? At least you don’t need an extra trailer to haul it.
- Feis’ can be … well, I’ll just go ahead and say it … a little boring, at least for feis dads. But you ain’t seen true boredom until you’ve gone to a horse show. Imagine horses (sometimes with people on their backs) walking in a circle. Around and around and around and around and around and around and around. That’s what they do! Granted, sometimes they might do something exciting like change direction, or go from a walk to a trot, but that’s about it. What about the horse jumping shows, you ask? Aren’t they exciting? Nope. Just because people and horses get maimed on a regular basis, doesn’t make it exciting. It’s still just a horse and rider going fairly slowly around and around (maybe even over some jumps). Isn’t that like NASCAR, you ask? Nope. In NASCAR it’s a car and driver going around and around. What’s the difference, you ask? Didn’t you see the word car was italicized? And the cars all have these cool paint jobs (except Dale Jarrett’s UPS car) and they go really fast and make lots of cool noises like vroooom and there’s beer and it’s loud and there are cool cars.
- Daily maintenance. Solo dresses are easy to take care of … at least compared to horses. There’s no need to actually feed your solo dress on a daily basis. If you want, you can zip it up in its dress bag and not pay any attention to it at all for six months. It won’t care. Try doing that with your horse. Not only will it be REALLY mad, it will be dead. So, you’ve got to feed and take care of your horse on a daily basis—or pay someone to do it for you. And when you go on vacation? A horse sitter is much harder to find than a dress sitter.
So, the next time you’re on your way to a feis and feeling sorry for yourself, think about the guy pulling the horse trailer you’re passing on the interstate.
Smile to yourself and repeat the following mantra three times:
“It’s not so bad, I could be a horse dad.”
I’m sure I’ve forgotten much more than I’ve listed above (my therapist says one day I’ll remember all those repressed memories—hopefully, I’ll be dead by then), I would love to hear from all those past and current feis dads (and moms) about their experiences and comparisons to Irish dancing.
--feis dad
2 comments:
If you think being a feis dad is bad, try a figure skater's dad. There too the outfits are just as mmm interesting and price tag is about the same except times 2. 2 pairs of dance shoes? try a 900 dollar pair of custom boots and blades that might last 6 months if your lucky. Oh and they need at least 3 or 4 practice outfits just for the practice ice at the competetions. And top this all off by getting to spend 4 days in the freezing cold ice rink per competetion. (that's if you're lucky enough to avoid the 5 days a week training your child does that caused you to take out a 3rd morgage on your home.) So when you think about other sports your child could be doing, just sit back and be glad you're a Feis Dad. At least there's generaly a pub in the hotels and climate controlled.
When I was in elementary school I wanted to be one of those horse people - so my mom and dad allowed me to take riding lessons, BUT first I had to go an hour beforehand to bathe and groom the horse and then shovel out the stall. Let's say I never did get out of the practice arena. Do you think if we made the kids set up the ballrooms, build the stages and lay the marley prior to every competition there would be as much interest in Irish dancing? Hmmm...
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