I Got the Disease

Many years ago my Uncle Ron asked me what I thought was a very rude question. "When are you going to grow out of your little-girl obsession with horses?" He said. What an ass. Then again, I knew from a very young age that Uncle Ron was full of shit. He was a smart man; a Ph.D who was a professor at the university I ended up attending, with a sizable collection of written works. But we called him Uncle Criminal for good reason, one of which included getting arrested while teaching (literally cuffed in the middle of a lecture, for burglary). When Uncle Criminal asked me this question, I was smart enough to know he was belittling my love of horses as an immature phase I would grow out of, like kindergarten boys drawing anatomically correct figures on the school sidewalk in chalk.

"Never," I answered back at him. And I was right.