The Great Molasses Caper (Or, How My Master Plan Was Foiled)

The funniest part about the story of the Great Molasses Caper is that it has absolutely nothing to do with Bay Girl at all. I was foiled completely by my own inability to remember small unimportant details, like where I set my jar of molasses down for the evening.

Hmmm, where should I put this sticky jar? I asked myself as I parked the golf cart for the evening. The oozing molasses had managed to come burbling over the top of the jar while I was dosing out a syringe for Bay Girl's latest come-to-deworming-Jesus meeting, and I felt that leaving a sticky, gooey mess in the cart for someone to step in/sit on/otherwise get stuck in was probably not a good idea. It was late in the evening, I had places to be that night, and I opted to just toss it into the nearest empty stall's feed bucket for the night. No biggie, I thought, I'll just grab that tomorrow and find a better place for it. No harm will come to it there.

Fast forward to the following morning. I was pulling horses up out of their pastures and into stalls so that they could be close at hand for their daily treadmilling when my boss asked if I could bring her little Mustang up for her. No problem, I said, and headed off to get the chubby little guy, taking less than 3 seconds to consider where I'd put him for her. Aaah, right here, I thought to myself as I stopped in front of the stall closest to where the golf cart was regularly parked. He'll be easy to access for her if he's right there waiting! Sorry there's nothing to eat in there old chap, you'll just have to wait until later! With these parting words, I headed off to get the next horse, blissfully unaware of what was about to unfold in the barn behind me.

When I walked back into the barn, all I could hear was Chip bashing his feed bucket around. Huh, that's weird, I thought to myself. There's no food in there, why is he playing with his bucket? It took me probably the better part of a minute to connect the dots and turn back around with a look of horror on my face. The molasses! How could I have forgotten! There's a WHOLE jar in there... but it's sealed, right? No biggie, right?

Wrong! Did you know Mustangs can open tightly sealed jars? I didn't either, but apparently Chip's prehensile flappers managed to pop open the lid with a single crunch, effectively splattering sticky, dark, gooey, smelly molasses ALL over everything in the stall. In the feed bucket. On the floor. All over his face. On the walls. Everywhere. I gaped in horror as he lifted his stained muzzle up from the bucket, white blaze covered in brown goo. He had a show to go to that morning! It was EVERYWHERE!


Lucky, I managed to get him mostly cleaned up and out the door in an appropriate amount of time. The jar of molasses and the mashed up syringe did not fare quite as well as he did, I'm afraid. They were both given a proper garbage bin burial post-eating, like proper barn items deserve.


I'm going to take this as a sign that the powers that be do not recommend we continue to attempt the molasses thing.