one of my favourite random life statements that i made up years ago and that i unleash unwittingly [well, maybe a little wittingly] on the world every now and then is the one that goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it throw stones in glass houses.”

while it’s true that i made it up, i didn’t really give it a lot of thought until today, but if you give me a moment [and i know you will, see you did just there, don’t give up now or the curiosity will kill you as like a cat would] [is it a double simile if you stick both a “like” and an “as” in? wondered the boy] i will expound to you some of the deep truths of said statement:

# if you have lead a horse to water then the chances of it being inside of a glass house at the same time are pretty small, as what glass house manufacturer would have the time, energy or creativity left to create some kind of inside water feature to add to her [or his] already quite elaborate glass house construction?

# if we are talking regular sized horse here, then horses are quite big and doorways are generally doorway-sized and with the house being made of glass and all, you don’t want to mess too much with trying to squeeze an animal of that rotundity through and so we are going to have to add some kind of bigger door/smaller horse clause or understanding for this to work.

# assuming we get said smaller horse [but it can’t be a pony as that would change the saying and so we are probably looking at a Falabella or at most some form of the very aptly named Miniature Horse] into the house and near to the water source, we hit the main problem which is the picking up of and throwing of the stone – again one would have to question the general sanity of the house designer in terms of the scattered rocks montage she has going, but the biggest problem in this whole scenarion is the idea of a hoofed being being able to grasp a rock in any manner that would suggest throwing it would be the following plausible action.

in conclusion, for any rock-grabbing to have been possible at all, the horse would have to have grasped the rock with both front hooves [and be practically standing on its back two or else in a severely uncomfortably semi-crouched back feet spread position] and the likelihood is that the slipperiness of the rocks [due to being in or near water] and the awkwardness of the grab would make the possibility of getting any kind of forward thrust into throwing it virtually impossible.

and so while in extremely engineered circumstances it may be possible to lead a smallish horse to rock-surrounded pools of water within a carefully designed extra-large doored house, it is highly unlikely that there will be any throwing of a single stone, let alone ‘stones’ in said house.

which, all in all, probably gives the designer and creator of that particular house of glassness a huge sigh of much-deserved relief.