So you think you hate your job? Meet The Teaser.

As I’ve mentioned before, our farm is a horse-breeding farm for standard bred racehorses, or trotters. Folks come from far and wide to enlist the expertise of The Mayor, The Sherriff and Wonder Woman, who have excellent reputations in their field. The horses that come to our farm to breed are bred through artificial insemination, as are all standard bred racehorses. (Thoroughbred horses are bred “live cover,” meaning that the action is real, live, skin-to-skin or fur-to-fur). Either way, the time-honored practice of using a “teaser” horse is used. And the teaser definitely has The Worse Job in the World.

“What is a teaser?” you may ask. When breeding a female horse, obviously it’s important to know when she’s ovulating and ready to go. Nowadays, there are sophisticated means of finding that out through ultrasounds and such, but the old fashioned way that is still used is to enlist the help of a teaser. We have a teaser on our farm. To protect his identity, I’ll call him Mr. Blue. When it comes time to see if a mare is ready to breed, poor Mr. Blue is invited into a stall to meet the pretty young thing. He saunters up to her, tentatively introduces himself, and gives her a sniff, all under the watchful eye of The Sherriff. If Miss Thing isn’t feeling it, she gets aggressive and starts wailing on Mr. Blue, biting and even sometimes kicking him. “So … that’s a no, then?” he mumbles.

The Sherriff then escorts a disappointed, shocked and slightly bruised Mr. Blue to the door. That’s bad enough, right? Mr. Blue is like a shot down young lad at a bar. But hang on, it gets worse.

When the timing is right and Miss Thing is feeling it, things get really bad. Mr. Blue is escorted in with a jaunty step as if he’s wearing an ascot and smoking jacket. He approaches Miss Thing. “Hey, baby. I notice that you smell especially fine today. How about a roll in the hay?” If Miss Thing is in the mood for love, she shows it in fine fashion, raising her tail to reveal her nether regions whilst taking a long, hot piss. Mr. Blue nods his head, “that’s what I’m talking about …” And then he is swiftly removed from the stall because Mr. Blue’s semen ain’t got game. His guys are not invited to Miss Thing’s party.

Next scene is pretty unromantic. The Sherriff quietly enters the stall, whispers sweet nothings into Miss Thing’s ears, whips out the turkey baster and efficiently inseminates her with some prize-winning stuff and the deed is done. How that stuff is collected is an entirely different story.

Mr. Blue goes back to his lonely stall, poor guy. But The Sherriff and his staff are so good to Mr. Blue. They make sure he feels the love from them, but I'm afraid it’s just not the same. When I expressed concern about Mr. Blue’s repeatedly broken heart, The Sherriff assured me that Mr. Blue “takes care of himself, not to worry.” Good Lord, I have no idea what that means. (Holy horse porn, Batman. Who knew?) I’ll just take The Sherriff at his word.

Shortly after we acquired the farm, I was walking through the barn with my youngest, Meriwether, who was then 14 years old and a freshman in high school. When we came upon Mr. Blue, I petted his nose and whispered empathetically, “Hello, Mr. Teaser.”

“Mom, what’s a teaser?” Meriwether asked. She listened intently, nodding wide-eyed, mouth agape as I explained to her the details above. She then let out a long exhale and looked at me hard. “So,” she finally said quietly, “The teaser is in the ‘friend zone’ forever?”

"Yep, that about sums it up,” I replied.

“Wow. That sucks.”

“Yes, yes it does, sweetheart.”

So on your worst day at work or, if you’re single, out playing the field, keep things in perspective, take a moment and think, “it could be worse. I could be a teaser.”

You’re welcome.