My buddy Tommy Boy and I were outta town calling square dances on the road. We weren't literally in the middle of the street with our microphones calling dosados, ya see, we were both booked to do a weekend in upstate New York and we thought we'd do a little sight seeing on Saturday afternoon before the big dance that night.  Now, you've gotta picture this, Tom resembles the late Dan Blocker. You remember? Hoss from Bonanza.  A big, hefty hombre.

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Besides bar hopping as our leisurely recreation for the afternoon, we both wanted to do something a little adventurous.  I said, "let's go horseback riding!"  Tom laughed, and said, " Ha!  You do realize I'm built like the Center for the NY Giants!"  Aw, come on, I urged him.  Nope, he kept saying, "I'll watch you ride, bro!  Plus, I've never rode a horse".  " It's easy" I kept assuring him.

We spotted the perfect place to ride, and as we pulled up, I was able to convince him we'd get two horses, and I've ridden before, so I'd be there right along beside him.  My mother has had a horse for years, so I have a little knowledge about horses and saddles.  Well because of our tavern touring, we got there around 5pm, and it was a little late and the manager told us that there were other people on the horses and that there was only one horse left to ride.  Tom spoke up and said, "no problem.  I'll watch you ride, Cory.  Not a problem."  I smiled at the manager and asked him to give me a moment.  I pulled Tom aside and told him, it's not going to be any fun if I'm riding by myself.  Tom says to me, in a smart alec tone, " what, do you want both of us to ride the same horse".  I snapped my fingers and yelled, " Great Idea! "  Tom interupted me as I was scurrying back to the manager, " that was a joke, both of us?  We'd break the horse in half. "  I told Tom to hush, and I told the manager that we'd both take turns riding it.

Now, the horse wasn't too big and I wanted to make sure Tom got most of the riding in.  So, I helped him get up ontop of the horsey.  We were about as smooth as Laurel and Hardy were in the one movie they were Piano Delivery Boys.  Tom kept fighting with me and I told him, we needed to get him up on it first.  Because, I've mounted many times and it would be easy for me to just jump in the saddle after Tom was positioned correctly.  Well, due to the alcohol intake a little earlier that day, needless to say we were laughing our 'asses' off.  Finally got Tom up and on.  I nearly ended up in the ER trying to get him up there. 

Once he was up top, he got a little nervous and kept asking over and over again, "Now what?"  "Shut the hell up" I bellowed as I jumped up in front of Tom. We are now riding tandem ontop of this poor helpless creature, who was behaving a lot better than its riders.  I told Tom riding tandem is safer than riding abreast.  He said, " what's abreast?"  And, I said, " you're married, you should know." So, slowly, I made a clicking sound and we started off nice and slow.  I kept yelling back to Tom, " are you okay? " It wasn't long into the ride, that I began to feel Tom starting to slip off to the right side, so I shoved him back up with my right arm and hand.  And then the S.O.B. did the same thing to the left and I repeated my action again, shouting to him, " You can't ride side saddle". Then, I guess you could say that this was the straw that broke the palomino's back.  I felt Tom slipping off backwards and he grasped onto my sides in a panic and bellowed many four letter words.  By now we have a bit of an audience watching and laughing.  Thank heavens the manager was no place in sight.

I screamed, "OK! This is not working." I jumped off and Tom just perched there like a sitting duck, and I told him to move up a little bit.  "what the hell for!?"  he asked.  I explained in my half buzzed state, " Cause I'll get behind you and I won't fall off, and I'll tell you what to do by whispering into your ear."  He said, " are you the horse whisperer as I was leaping onto the horse and I nearly slipped and fell because I was laughing so hard at what that bone head had just said.  Can you picture this scene?  Chris Farley and David Spade riding horseback?  So, I told Tom to hold on tight to the stirrups.  We now had a nice trot going on, but Tom decide to rock the horse and he leaned back to me and said, " how do we make this thing go faster?" 

I thought he was joking but he wasn't.  "Are you friggin' serious?"  I questioned.  "oh, yeah" he said, "I wanna ride a fast horse." I looked up to the sky and said, "forgive him Lord, he knows not what he says or does".  I told him to carefully dig his heels into the sides of the horses and yelp 'giddy up!'  Well, he must've dug his spurs in too much to the horses side because he really darted off and we nearly flew off his back.  People were gathered around and started to make a fuss and kept pointing at us.

The horse went from a gallant gallop to a chugging warp speed bullet.  Tom grabs the horse around the neck.  I grab Tom around the neck, cause my arms couldn't fit around his waist.  We are both screaming and soon began crying.  I'm thinking if we get thrown off, momma said, you're supposed to dust yourself off and get right back up.  Screw that.  Hi Ho Silver! Now Tom starts sliding to the right, and I began leaning to my left, and the horse is rocking us all about.  Tom begins to vomit and no kidding, I lose about $4 in pocket change.  Then the horses begins to bray out of control and I swear if it wasn't for the manager of the Kmart pulling the plug on that thing we would've been gonners.

Gotcha!