Drama, Drama, Drama!

So, as part of our Intro to Riding Instruction class, we had to do an Event Planning exercise. Which is only there so that the instructors have a little slave labor during the annual FFA Judging competition.

Anyway, the whole class was assigned tasks and I was voluntold to be on the cleaning crew/all around gofer.

"Do we need to dress up for this?"

"No, you'll be behind the scenes, just look like a human."

I can do that.

Show up this morning, early, to clean up around the barn so that people can be impressed. Only to discover that no one has swept either of the tie racks all semester.

Ugh. So spend about an hour longer than I had planned (somehow, I became the leader of the barn monkeys) shoveling blow dirt off of the cement and sweeping up months worth of detritus, after three of the people who were supposed to be on cleanup crew simply failed to show, and one declared "I have to show my horse in this thing," and left. Mind, this was an hour and a half before the show was to start. I could have understood "hey I have to kick out on this early cause I gotta get ready" but this girl left the barn. I think she went and got breakfast.

Then haul chairs and tables, finish that just as the buses were heading our way, only to be told "Um, we need you presentable. Like... now."

Standard rule for any of you who don't know, for any western event, is that anyone who will be in the arena must wear a long sleeved western shirt. If a hat is worn it must be a cowboy hat.

Except that I had been told I didn't need to be attired that way, so I had shown up in a t-shirt and hoodie, with my hair in a pony tail and a ball cap on. And all of my western wear was... you guessed it... at the Old Homestead, forty five minutes of drive time plus a thirty minute road construction wait away.

So, I booked it to El Marto Del Wal and snagged me a tank top, some makeup to hide the fact that I haven't slept right in... a while... and a hair brush and clip.

I had hat hair, people, something had to be done and a bun in a clip was as good as it was gonna get.

Then across the highway to the western wear, tack, feed, tool and tire store, where, miracle of miracles, they were having a clearance sale. Snagged two western shirts because I didn't have time to try them on and I wasn't sure if the one I really liked was going to fit right, and off to the Stop N Rob to change in the bathroom and snag myself some form of caffeine.

Ya'll, went from grubby barn monkey to semi-presentable (by my standards... I think I did damn good for the tools I had, but I'd have been happier to get a call at five in the morning saying "hey we're gonna need you up front") with all of that running around, in thirty minutes.

I'm nothing, if not efficient.

I then proceeded to run my puppy butt off for the rest of the day, picking up the slack where people decided to stand around with their thumb up their butt instead of being useful.

Next time I get told I won't need to be lookin good, while I'm that far from home... I'm bringing what I need anyway.