Number Five

I originally wanted to title this: "Number Five on My List of Things That I Have Never Done Before But That I Finally Got To Do and Ended Up Really Liking" but I decided that was entirely too long and somehow not very grammatical (and I couldn't figure out how to fix it, anyway.) So Number Five it is. Why am I blogging about Number Five? Because that was an interesting experience and I just felt like blogging about it today. And because this is my blog and I can be as random as I please. Will I ever blog about Numbers One, Two, Three and Four? Quite possibly but not until I blog about Number Nine!

On July 17, 2010 I got to watch a Professional Bull Riders bull-riding event in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I came away from that experience with two solid convictions and two unanswered questions:


convictions:

1-I will never ride a bull

2-If anybody I love is ever going to ride a bull, I will not be watching. In fact, it would be best if I didn't even know it was going to happen.


questions:

1-How do they get the bulls so mad?

2-Why do cowboys wear such big belt buckles?


(If you know the answer to either of these questions, please feel free to keep that information to yourself. I am not so sure I want to know the answers.)


I settled back into my seat on the very top row of the Bank of Oklahoma Event Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma and was ready for a nice relaxing evening of watching cowboys ride bulls. Well! I don't know what I expected but from the very first cowboy's ride and subsequent---painful---fall, there was not a moment of relaxation! I was either still in shock from the last guy's fall or bracing myself for the next guy to get bucked off. The rodeo clown did his best to divert the bull's attention but he didn't do much to ease my tension. I knew that very soon some mama's son was going to climb up on a mad bull and the gate was going to open and that bull and his rider were going to blow out of there like a locomotive. And within 3 seconds, that cowboy was gonna be on terra firma once again. I spent the whole time alternately gripping the armrest, covering my eyes, screaming like a girl, jumping up and down on my seat (that may be a slight exaggeration) or asking deep questions like "did you SEE that?" But definitely not kicking back and relaxing.

I think my personality overdoses a little bit on the mercy side, so every time a cowboy got hurt or even just limped a bit on his way out of the arena, I couldn't help but wonder how much pain he was in and if he was going to be all right and whether his mama was there watching. Finally I decided that I was right on the border between ridiculousness and insanity...and that was someplace I just didn't want to be...

From the moment that we saw the cowboy getting ready to climb on the back of the bull to the very few seconds he was actually riding the bull to the time he spent groaning on the ground or limping away, the adrenaline was coursing through my blood stream, totally eliminating any need for caffeine even though it was literally three hours past my usual bedtime (I know that revelation is going to shock some of you!)

After the last cowboy tasted the dirt, I was left wondering what kind of mama would come to watch her son ride a bull and what Skeeter Kingsolver and Pistol Robinson's real names were...