Tax or Tack Shop

ACEO

Whenever I attend a get together and meet new people the inevitable question will always arise.

“And what do you do?”

Sounds simple enough.  I say that I am an artist, which is pretty normal.  I then add that I specialize in equine art and I may get a few quizzical looks.  Finally, I tell them that I also run a Tack Shop.  

If you are not in a room with people who know horses,  no one, and trust me on this, nary a soul will know what a Tack Shop is.  I finally figured out why.  Mr. Webster is to blame.

 According to Webster’s dictionary the word tack is defined as the gear used in equipping a horse.  The only problem is that it is definition number 9!  It comes after things like tiny nails, zig-zags, stickiness and even some strange sounding nautical stuff.  It’s no wonder that non-English speaking people have such difficulty with the English language.  Nine definitions for a word and that’s not the least of it.  There are more than 19!

And to confuse matters even further, the word tack, when spoken, sometimes sounds to the uninitiated, like tax. So I find myself explaining even further that I do not prepare taxes.  I am not an accountant; I can barely balance my own checkbook.  I own a Tack shop not Tax Shop.  I even find myself avoiding any social events during the month of April.

So I try and think of creative ways to explain the shop. I say Saddllery…that works, I sometimes say horse equipment, then I usually give up and just say saddles, and such.  

So that being settled, I’d just like to let everyone know that I just love Quarter horses.  Yes, I said quarter not half, not two thirds but Quarter Horse --an American breed of agile horses capable of great speed in short distances, namely a quarter mile.  And that dear reader is fortunately definition number one, according to Mr. Webster.