The story of mutton bustin'.

If you're not familiar with "mutton bustin", perhaps because you were raised somewhere other than Eastern Washington?, let me start with a brief run down of what goes on.

Kids under 55 pounds are dressed up in helmets and protective vests and are placed on sheep. Said sheep, or mutton, are released from a shoot and the kids are timed on how long they can stay on the sheep. It's cruel and only the worst parents sign their kids up and take pictures, videos and laugh.

So this weekend at the Benton Franklin County Fair the Rings and the Finnegans were those parents. We signed up not only 4 year old Wild-Man-Caden (my nephew), and 5 year old Won't-Let-My-4-Year-Old-Cousin-Show-Me-Up-Charlie, but we also signed up 3 year old Clueless-Annie.

So now I'm officially a terrible parent. A terrible parent who chose the easy route and let her 3 year old sign up for what the big boys were doing rather than make a hard? parenting decision and tell her no. Hindsight is such a bitch.

They only had room for 15 kids so everyone interested put their name in a hat and the 15 drawn got to ride. Lucky for us (us being the parents wanting to be entertained, not the kids) all 3 of the kids got chosen.

Sadly I can't get my videos to upload on to the blog. I may have to back them up and try from a different computer. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

So because I was video taping the events I have no pictures of their actual rides. You'll have to actually read my typing to get the play by play.

Caden
Caden was up first. Not just first of our 3 kids but first of all 15. His sheep goes out of the shoot and just stands there. Technically Caden's ride lasted 30 second which was basically a world record. Sadly, it didn't count.

They pulled Caden off and put him on a new sheep. New sheep ran crazy fast across the rink and Caden only lasted about 2.5 seconds. Quite possibly the longest 2.5 seconds of his life. He took a face full of sawdust like a total champ on his way down.

Because his ride was less than 3 seconds he didn't get a score and was sent on his way with sawdust stuck to every sweaty spot on his body and a blue ribbon. Did I mention it was 98 degrees out while they were doing this? Holy moly it might have been the hottest day I've been alive for.

Charlie
Charlie was 3rd to ride (out of the 15 kids). Charlie made it all the way across the rink like a pro. He fell at the very end but when I reviewed the video it kind of looked like the crew pulled him off the sheep, he maintains that he fell though.

Charlie got a score of 80. The score was based on his control of the animal and overall technique (hold on for dear life or be trampled by a wild sheep?). Because his score was so high he was asked to ride again as a finalist. Yay?

Annie
Annie was 11th to ride. The wrangler asked her about 20 times if she was sure she wanted to do this. He checked and double checked her waiver, walked by us a bunch of times giving us every opportunity to pull her out, and then finally opened the gate releasing the sheep.

He said over and over before she started 'she's our littlest cowgirl folks, this Annie from Spokane is a brave one'. Not that she's not brave, because she is, but I think what she really was though was unaware. We explained she would be riding a sheep, she got to watch 10 kids before her ride the sheep, but I still don't think she really understood what was about to happen.

So the sheep took off and Annie fell after about 2 seconds but kept hanging on. Great entertainment for the crowd that's not her family that loves her. Scary for her family that was watching and was immediately thinking holy crap what have I just done to my child!
After she finally let go the wrangler ran over and picked her up she was crying and mad and covered in sawdust. I ran over and got her and she was saying in between sobs 'I was so scared', 'the sheep went so fast'. Then she looked over at the pony rides going on next door and all the happy kids riding the ponies and she goes 'they're not falling off'.

That's when it hit me that she thought the sheep was just going to walk along slowly in a circle and she was going to get a nice little ride on a cute little sheep and she would be like Mary and her little sheep would be white and snow and everything would be nice. Instead of that fantasy she got the ride from hell on an angry gray sheep who ran like hell across a rink didn't care at all if she got dragged and trampled.
So we get her calmed down and my mom and I decide to take her to the bathroom since Charlie's second ride shouldn't be for a few more minutes. She goes to the bathroom and as I'm wiping sawdust from all the places that sawdust should never be Matt calls me on my cell and says Charlie's suiting up for his second ride right this second.

So we run out of the bathroom and race back to the mutton rink. Charlie's got his helmet on and he's ready to go and right as we get within earshot we hear the wrangler say over the mic that Charlie has changed his mind and won't be riding.

Of course I'm not about to make him after what I just saw the 3 of them go through, but I did want him to finish what he signed up for. Plus it turns out that he's good at this and how cool would it be if my boy who has never been a dare devil in his life sweeps this thing and wins a belt buckle? I mean, I'd buy him a belt for sure!

Anyways, so he comes over and he's crying because he's embarrassed and he thinks we're mad and disappointed and I ask him why he didn't do it and his response was that he didn't want to get his new shirt dirty (my mom had bought all 3 of them 'I survived mutton busting' shirts). Not 'I didn't want to die'. Or 'getting dragged by a sheep through sawdust praying I don't get trampled isn't actually fun'. But 'I didn't want to get my new shirt dirty'.

So that's the story of mutton bustin' for the Rings and Finnegans. Later we found out that all 6 finalists who rode got a trophy. When I told Charlie that he said he would have done it if he knew he'd be getting a trophy. I'd say oh well, next time, but I think we all know there will be no next time for the Ring kids. Caden Finnegan...he may have a next time, but the Ring kids are just glad to still be alive.

The End.