I used to have a horse named Sugarfoot that was well known for her sighs: she would start in with the sighing as soon as she saw me coming across the pasture with a halter in my hand–huge, earth-rattling, 1000-pound sighs. Sighhh as I slipped the halter over her nose. Sighhh as I tossed a bareback pad up on her back. Sighhh as we headed down the driveway in search of adventure. Since Sugarfoot was a rather round horse already, her sighs were not something I could easily ignore; how could I ignore something that caused my already nearly horizontal legs to stick out even further each time she gathered breath for one of her monumental sighs? It was like riding a bellows. And even if I could have ignored the pendulum-like rise and fall of my legs, there was no way I would have been able to ignore the look that accompanied those sighs: it was the closest I have ever seen an animal come to actually rolling their eyes in exasperation.
“Are you really going to make me leave my nice, comfortable pasture to go on the Bataan Death March?” her look said.
Not that I was asking Sugarfoot to do anything so extreme: nothing beyond walking for a few miles alongside the canal until we had found a suitable watermelon field for “guerrilla harvesting.” It wasn’t like I was asking her to hold still while I stood on her withers and practiced my trick-riding skills (well, not more than once). It wasn’t like I was asking her to gallop between the rows of the pistachio orchard so I could pretend I was Alec Ramsay on The Black Stallion (again, not more than once). It was just a nice, pleasant little ride. And that was the problem.
Between the look and the sighs, it all too obvious that Sugarfoot had a very low opinion of the whole horseback riding thing in general, and horseback riding as it concerned her in particular: while she might have to put up with it (grudgingly), she sure wasn’t going to make it enjoyable for the rest of us.
Fast forward twenty years or so, and, take away the nine-hundred-pound difference in their weights, the tail, and the fact that I have never, not even once attempted to stand on her withers, and Clementine is Sugarfoot all over again.
It starts in the morning when I ask her to put her cereal bowl in the sink–sighhh, followed by requests to get dressed–sighhh, gather up her homework–sighhh, brush her hair–sighhh. Every tiny request is met with the same shuddering sigh, until our house sounds like a bunch of asthmatics trying to play the tuba. The only thing that breaks up the monotony is that sometimes the sigh is accompanied by a complimentary eyeroll (who knows: maybe with six you get eyeroll).
As a matter of fact, Clementine has been sighing so much lately that I can’t remember what it’s like to talk to someone whose words don’t all come out on the exhale. It’s like living in a meditation hall. Or in a garage where all of the tires are suddenly going flat.
“Did you brush your teeth?” I’ll ask.
“Yessssss…” she’ll sigh.
“When are you going to clean your room?”
“Sooooon…”
The funny thing is that, just like with Sugarfoot, this spectacular performance is taking place for an audience of one–me–a person whose appreciation for the dramatic arts borders on the low side of negligible. And just like with Sugarfoot, the whole point of the performance is to get across the idea that while certain activities will be tolerated (grudgingly), they will not generate any enjoyment whatsoever–for anyone.
At least with Sugarfoot, every now and then I still got a watermelon out of the deal.