How To Irritate a Cowboy

I don’t claim to be an expert on anything, but irritating my cowboy husband is one area in which I feel very confident in my abilities.

Though I’ve had 12 years of practice, I do not, as my husband claims, lay awake at night thinking of new ways to irritate him. When I am awake at night, I usually kick him and ask if he’s still awake. Sometimes, it takes three or four kicks of increasing intensity until he’s awake enough to answer that no, he was indeed not awake.

Here are a few of my other tried-and-true methods you might try on a cowboy in your life. Results are guaranteed.

Mix up all the bridles in the tack room.
Cowboys arrange their bridles and reins in a very specific order. The system may be difficult for onlookers to discern, but it is plain as day and twice as obvious to the cowboy who owns the gear. If you grab a snaffle bit setup and put it in the solid-jawed bridle section, you can make his cheese slide right off the cracker. If you’re in a hurry, just grab a few headstalls and flip them around so the curb strap is on the outside. Make sure no rein chains are swinging when you exit the tack room; that’s a dead giveaway of your guilt.

Move his shoeing hammer.
The man doesn’t notice if you cut 6 inches off your hair and dye it red, but he is instantly aware of and enraged by anyone moving his driving hammer 1/8 of an inch over in his shoeing box. He can’t find a butter knife in the silverware drawer, but he notices tool misplacement as if it’s his job. Then he delivers a ready-made lecture on how he depends on those tools to do his job, which provides a living for the family, a lecture familiar to all family members, plus a few neighbor kids. If any listeners or dependents choose to mouth the words along with the provider or father, they will quickly learn that is the wrong choice.

Use horseshoe nails for craft projects.
I only did this once and was immediately told how much more expensive horseshoe nails are than pushpins. I also received a modified version of the “I Need These Tools to Make a Living” lecture. I did not receive any more horseshoe nails for my craft project.

Remain unable to accurately determine which way is north.
Sometimes, this comes naturally to me. I mean, someday, this will come to me with effort. Right now, the directions of the compass are still largely a mystery. I understand that compasses have directions; I just have trouble telling them apart when applied to a real-life situation, such as locating our truck at the mall. This irritates my husband because not only does he always know which imaginary arrow points in which direction of Never Eat Soggy Waffles, but he can also find our truck the first time every time in a parking lot.

Tie your rope to your saddle with coils of different sizes.
Actually, this one displays a level of sloppiness that borders on dangerous and irritates me, too. I’m with my husband and all the other cowboys who get irritated when they see a rope with a coil of every size. Let’s all practice good rope handling techniques and keep those coils precisely spaced.