My wife, Mary, and I are attending the races at Bay Meadows Racetrack. Since the weather is cool for northern California, we sit in the restaurant area and watch the races through the partition glass. The track will be demolished in a year\u2014maybe two\u2014so I am feeling nostalgic today. I don\u2019t like the thought of condos replacing this picturesque, palm-lined track.<\/p>\n
The third race is scheduled to start, and I have returned from the betting window. Mary is studying the racing chart even though I have already placed our bet.<\/p>\n
\u201cTemperance pays five to one,\u201d Mary says. \u201cIs that the horse you bet on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo who did you bet on?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hand Mary our ticket. \u201cI bet on Frilly Miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frilly Miss is a chestnut mare, and her odds are ten to one. I have placed twenty dollars on her, so the payoff will be huge if she wins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked you to bet on Temperance,\u201d says Mary.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou only suggested it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo instead of taking my suggestion, you bet on a horse named Frilly Miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like I named her,\u201d I protest. \u201cI only put money on her. Frilly Miss is a mudder and the track is kinda wet today.\u201d<\/p>\n
We watch as handlers load color-clad horses into the starting gate. Temperance, a spirited palomino, does not want to enter her box. She is pacing about and tossing her head as though trying to throw the bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may as well have named her,\u201d says Mary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean by that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly a chauvinist pig would name a horse Frilly Miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
I lean back in my chair, gathering my thoughts as we wait for the race to start. Since I am an author, I am able to phrase a tidy apology. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I say. \u201cIt was a Freudian slip. I would never deliberately support a horse whose name is demeaning to women.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre horses your only exception?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you trying to say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust look at the low-life characters in all those books you\u2019ve published. There\u2019s Tom, a commitment-phobic who sees women as disposable pleasures. There\u2019s Pomeroy, a raunchy oaf with no more finesse than a caveman. And Sam the Poontang man\u2014my god. Just his name says it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll try to be more sensitive,\u201d I say, but Mary has heard this promise before.<\/p>\n
Temperance is now locked in the starting gate along with the rest of the horses. A hush of anticipation has settled over the crowd.<\/p>\n
We hear the tattoo of pounding hooves once the horses explode from the gate. As they gallop into the turn, Temperance leads by a length and a half. Frilly Miss is running dead last, which affords me a small consolation. Perhaps Mary will forgive my transgression if I suffer some instant karma. When the horses enter the backstretch, however, this hope begins to fade. Temperance is still the leader, but Frilly Miss is making a bid. She is running near the center of the pack and is eating up more ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cTemperance is fighting her bit,\u201d I observe. \u201cHer jockey needs to give her more head.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMansplaining is not going to help you,\u201d says Mary. \u201cYou\u2019re only making things worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the horses enter the far turn, Frilly Miss is a length behind Temperance. As they thunder into the straightaway, they are running neck \u2019n\u2019 neck.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo, Frilly Miss!\u201d I holler. My outburst seems like sacrilege, but the racing gods still hear me. Despite her demeaning name, Frilly Miss wins by a nose.<\/p>\n
I go back to the ticket window and collect my two hundred dollars. Not wishing to press my good fortune, I bet modestly on the next race.<\/p>\n
Mary is filing her fingernails when I sit back down beside her. Hoping to gain her good graces, I give her all our winnings.<\/p>\n
She looks at me over her glasses and says, \u201cThis does not get you off the hook.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when will you forgive me?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll forgive you when you evolve,\u201d she snaps as she hands me back the money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promise never again to bet on Frilly Miss. There\u2014I\u2019m evolving as we speak, but flowering takes time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary pockets her emery board and picks up the racing chart. \u201cAll right, Mister Work in Progress. I\u2019ll forgive you for today. So who did you bet on in the next race?\u201d<\/p>\n
I pocket the money and then show her the ticket. \u201cMissing Link,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Just look at the low-life characters in all those books you\u2019ve published. There\u2019s Tom, a commitment-phobic who sees women as disposable pleasures. There\u2019s Pomeroy, a raunchy oaf with no more finesse than a caveman. And Sam the Poontang man\u2014my god. Just his name says it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-james-hanna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18201"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18977,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18201\/revisions\/18977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}