14. Move the fish to the cellar, the goats to the kitchen, the uncle to the
sofa and the dogs to the barn. Rotate weekly. Add a horse to the mix on the
fifth week. Stop the rotation when the horse gets to the barn. Confused but
grateful spouse won't question further.
13. Tell your spouse that "Ed" is here to repair the cable.
12. "This? This isn't a horse. This is a Common Black-Throated Northern
Debt-Precursor."
11. Organize a clandestine Equine Underground Pipeline. Connect to
breeders and trainers across several states.
10. Throw a hundred-dollar bill behind the couch. Yell, "Fetch!" While
the family members are fighting it out, you can sneak anything (up to and
including a troop of Marines) up the drive, past the house and into the
paddock.
9. Blame El Nino: The new horse washed in at high tide.
8. Wait for Halloween. Dress the new horse in a bad horse costume and
march him right into the barn.
7. Swear it's your best friend's new horse, come to live here only until
she breaks the news to her husband. Meanwhile, Sue can be pulling the same
trick in your name at her house.
6. Start housing the kids out in the barn to explain your long absences
from the house and your frequent comings and goings.
5. Have UPS deliver the new horse in several separate boxes over a period
of several days.
4. Big collar. Dog tags. Poodle trim. Insist on calling the new mare AKC
Fantasyland's FiFi Splendiphoria.
3. Sneak horse in at midnight. Return to house wearing only a trench coat
and negligee. Confess untruthfully to a lesser offense: having a torrid
affair with the hay man.
2. Don't buy another horse. Join the German Exchange Program; you feed,
house and culturally broaden the horizons of young German-born Hanoverian
for two years. (You have to mail the neighbor's elderly pony Stuey off to
Hannover for the 'exchange' part)
And the best way to sneak another horse into the home is:
1. "This horse isn't ours, dear. He says he's on a scavenger hunt and has
to find two suckers with a checkbook."
