Goats and Their Getting

Get My Goat:  A commonly repeated story which purports to explain the phrase's origin is that goats were placed with racehorses to keep them calm. When ne'er-do-wells who wanted the horse to race badly removed it, i.e. they 'got someone's goat', the horse became unsettled and ran badly.

I was getting annoyed yesterday at the people who are buying our condo because they are very annoying people who are doing deliberately doing annoying things to get my goat.  You could very well say that they're cads and ne'er-do-wells.  Now in my defense I have my ego right-sized most of the time . . . well, some of the time . . . um, it's not out of the question to have my ego right-sized once a year.  I did my writing which usually helps but in this case only served to show me in black and white how unreasonable these bounders were.  So I picked up the phone.  My phone has gradually shed most of its original 1000 lb weight so that I actually reach for it on a daily basis.  It's liftable.  I can manage it and I'm a 98 lb weakling.

Not to change the subject but why would a goat keep a racehorse calm?  I have no experience in animal husbandry but if I wanted to really piss off a horse I think a goat would be a reasonable choice.  It's like the idea that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.  I have this mental image of these huge thousand lb animals with big clumsy hooves trying to repair a broken egg.  If I wanted to smash the shit out of an egg I'd use a horse.

One of the men I called works a remarkably simple program.  He has some truths that he holds dear and he is loyal to them.  I personally see the world with a bit more nuance which can sometimes be a good thing and sometimes be a bad thing.  Nuance allows me to justify bullshit.  It leads me to justified bad behavior.  Anyway, my buddy trotted out the phrase: "And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol.  For by this time sanity will have returned."

This was a good passage to consider - the sentences which follow mostly deal with alcohol which is as it should be.  However, the phrase mentions "anyone" - people in other words.  It took some of the stress off of me - it freed me from the need to ascribe motives to someone else's actions.  I didn't have to fight it.  I let it go, let it come to me.

They sent the paperwork.  It was fine.  They weren't thinking about me.  They were probably golfing.  The weather has been very nice.