That Karma's A Bitch.

Just to illustrate the theory that you cannot get five horse people into a room without a fight breaking out, I have been taking part in a particularly STOOPID email spat over the past few days. Oh, but now it's turned into such a beautifully ironic and nasty muck that I can barely stand it. I've hurt myself sitting on my hands, stuffing all my fingers up into my jaw, preventing myself from saying something particularly delicious by way of an "I told you so."

Let me bring you up to date.

At the beginning of the week, a hue and cry arose on a Preservation Horse Breeders email list, which I mostly ignored, about the desperate need to send money to go get one particular horse who was about to go to auction. Oh yeah, there were a few others too, but this one, he is so cute! These requests flare up from time to time, but mostly the people who are interested in that bloodline get the information, either buy the horse, or find someone else who will take him, and everyone moves on.

Well, someone got all passionate about this horse, excuse me, this "Rescue." Man, I hate that word. We were asked for donations to cover gas for the person who was going to get him. No wait, what we should really do is set up a Rescue Fund so that anytime a horse of our bloodlines needs rescuing then the money will be available, right? A respected leader amongst the breeders said, "You know, we've talked about this from time to time but could never make all the details work out. Let's talk about it. Everyone's opinions are welcome."

Immediately, breeders from all over the country start saying, "Well, I dunno about Rescue. I mean, I'll give money to help with transportation, but I'm not busting in on someone's farm to 'rescue the herd'. Seen that gone all wrong waaaay too many times." And others are saying, "If we solicit donations, shouldn't we be a charitable organization? How would we figure out who to give the money to?" and on and on.

Off list I privately emailed the person who was the most agitated about rescuing this one horse. I essentially said, "You are going to have to think long and hard about your generic fund idea, especially if all you are going to do is transport the horse from one home into another temporary home. That's not a rescue, and it's unclear who owns the horse, what the foster person is supposed to do with the horse, and you know what, I had to disperse my aunt's 73 horses off her property after she died, and I hurt a lot of people's feelings when I insisted that they take their very own horses back. People on this list. I saw it all go down after my aunt died, and you had better be very careful about what you are starting."

And then I ended the letter with : "Good luck to you on this. I won't talk about this on the open list. Please do not forward this email. "

Yesterday morning I find in my inbox a reply to my letter, in which she rather self-righteously points out that all horses can benefit from being trained and promoted if they are to be placed. (Duh.) The reply includes excerpts from the letter. The reply is also sent to the entire Open List. (Wait a minute...) The reply ends with this gem:

I won't talk about this on the open list.
What open list?

Jesus Christ, lord in heaven. Are you that stupid?

So I send an email to the Open List, paraphrasing most of what I had written, leaving out the parts about the hurt feelings, and pointing out that it wasn't a communication meant for the open list, and pointing out that I had asked this person to keep it private.

Without ever apologizing, Ardent Rescuer writes to the list:

It was a mistake, but if you didn't want the rest of the group involved in the information within the email, maybe you shouldn't have sent the email period.

Oh thank you, goody two shoes. Are we REALLY back to the kindergarten argument of if you can't say anything nice? A dear friend wrote this hilarious rejoinder:

Well, I'll definitely make a note to myself to never tell you anything
I wouldn't want broadcast.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Too bad you didn't warn Suisan.

OK, so that made me laugh hard enough so that I dropped it. (Although I couldn't help myself from doing a google search on Arabians and her name. She don't have a website that I could find. Great promotion there, hun. OK, that was bad of me.)

Today I checked the almighty inbox to find three consecutive posts from Ardent Rescuer, the first two responding to posts very early on in the week. In the first she points out that if someone (not me, another list member) were to have an opinion on rescue such as that one, then her head must be up her ass and she must have a "brain the size of a pea", and the second goes on to point out that this person she suddenly hates isn't nearly as rational and easy to work with as either Jane or Mary.

And then the third is a contrite statement that the prior two were meant as private communications, not meant for the list at all, and she can only apologize for the public awfulness, and that it's important to know that those opinions only reflected her "feelings about rescue", not about that particular person at all, since she has never actually met that person.


Oh. My. God.

This is killing me. As I said above, my fingers are jammed so far inside my mouth to prevent typing out a reply that I think I hurt myself.

I have about a million options of various snarky things I can write to the list at this point. (Private seems useless.)

How's about:

Dear List.

In this time of email communication, it is important that we all understand how email actually works. See that line on top of the email? It says "TO:" Whatever address is IN that line is the address to which this email will be delivered. Then there is the ever confusing "CC:" line. Those people get the email too. I know. This is very confusing. We'll work on it together.

Or maybe:

Gee, Ardent Rescuer. How come she gets an apology but I don't?

Or the ever popular:

Boy, that karma's a bitch, huh?

Or perhaps:

As you once so righteously informed me and this very list, "If you didn't want the rest of the group involved in the information within the email, maybe you shouldn't have sent the email period." Good point.

Or perhaps:

Maybe it's your FEEEELINGs which have landed you in this hot water, eh? After all, I thought all opinions were welcomed, or at least that's what the leader of the breed organization said. Apparently not those you disagree with. Those belong to the pea-brained among us, right? Good to know.

(Man, this IS cathartic. Better than writing the emails to the lists, come to think of it.)

Here's another:

Ardent Rescuer, while driving around the country rescuing horses in whom NO ONE has expressed interest, it might behoove you to check your medication. Something seems amiss and I wouldn't want you to drive unsafely.

Or:

Remind me never to put you in charge of any committee or fund. Your professionalism is a wonder.

Or:

Those emails tonight made me Laugh! Ooo damn, you are a funny bitch. Thanks for lightening up on all the drama about "lost bloodlines" and "emergency auctions." Real kneeslappers there! Got any cute pictures of your horsies?

Aaaah. Now I can finally go to sleep. Thanks for listening.