Ted Wilson Reviews the World: A Pony

★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5)

Have you ever seen a pony? I mean a pony in real life. If you haven’t, you should. Basically take a horse and shrink it down to hilariously small proportions and that’s what a pony is.

When I came across this pony at a children’s birthday party in the park, thinking it was a horse threw off my sense of perspective, and I thought the children surrounding it were enormous kids, each suffering from the same unfortunate glandular disorder. Perhaps they were part of a support group and the horse was a therapy horse.

As I got closer I discovered the children were healthy and it was the horse that had a disorder.

Knowing I hadn’t been invited to this party, it was going to be tough to get close enough to that pony to touch it. I told the partygoers that I was a park ranger and I needed to inspect the pony to make sure it wasn’t a bear or anything dangerous. A mom at the party said, “sure, whatever.” That was my ticket in!

The pony smelled like oats, which I love. I eat oatmeal for breakfast every morning, so I really felt a personal connection to this pony. I pictured him coming over for breakfast in the morning. The two of us sharing a bowl of oats and a cup of orange juice. Then the pony would give me a ride to work and all the townspeople would see us pass by and wave and be jealous of our friendship — and my independence from fossil fuels.

But this would never happen because this pony was not sentient and belonged to a party supply rental company. I stared into his eyes wondering if he could sense what the two of us could become, but as near as I could tell, he couldn’t sense anything. He just stared straight ahead. Then with his hind leg he kicked a child.

Chaos erupted and I took this as my cue to run back to my car and drive home. When I got home I spent the afternoon thinking about that pony. It left me with more questions than answers. If I saw that pony again, would I recognize it? Would it recognize me? Are pony burgers a legal thing and if I ordered one, what would the odds be that I could end up eating my almost-pony-friend?

I drove back to the park and looked for the pony, hoping it has somehow escaped and was now living free in the park. I saw a squirrel and possibly a muskrat, but no pony.

BEST FEATURE: I named it Gerald.
WORST FEATURE: I think I saw lice in its mane.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing a salad fork.

TED WILSON REVIEWS THE WORLD: DARRYL’S DIARY