Low point

At work, we have this habit of filling in the “high points” and the “low points” of the week.
I have a story to tell for the low point of the week.

My week already started off pretty low because I sold my horse on Monday.
The way it happened was quite a drama, and I had a lot of mixed feelings about it. On the positive side, when I saw the buyer, I liked her. I already didn’t hate her from our online communication, she did not ask stupid questions, but when I saw her in real life, I really liked her. She was a girl of twelve or so. She arrived with two adult men in a car that was pulling a horse trailer. The men later just sat in the car smoking and did not participate in the event.
The girl got out, and she was only half my size, very thin, blond hair, huge glasses. I led her to the paddock where the horses were. Two of my horses were grazing outside, and I told her - these are not yours; let’s go inside to see your horse. She followed me. I led her inside and told her - “look, THIS is your horse from now on”. The horse that was about to become hers was standing in the corner, licking a block of salt. The girl came to him and touched him on the side. The horse looked at her, she looked at me, and she had a huge smile, just as huge as her glasses, and these were the kind of glasses that make eyes look bigger, so she looked like a happy pancake.
I smiled back, probably with a smile just as huge as I thought to myself: I like this girl, and I will do everything I can to stuff this horse in the trailer for her, to make it so that she can take this horse home.
The other thing I haven’t mentioned is that I was already slightly intoxicated at that moment because I had drunk half a bottle of wine just before the girl arrived. I needed to stop my hands from shaking. My hands were shaking not only because this was the beloved long-time horse I was attached to but also because I knew that this horse wasn’t going to go into the trailer without a fight. I also knew that if I failed to get him into the trailer for this buyer, then I would have to try to sell him to the second buyer who was waiting in line and because the second buyer was an idiot - judging from the stupidity of questions she was asking about my horse. And I didn’t want to sell my horse to an idiot.
So I smiled at this girl, and to myself, I was thinking, “you have no idea what’s coming”.
The other thought I had was - “you probably had no idea that this horse was so big”. He was already a little too big for me, but this girl was only half my size, so to her, this horse must have looked like a giant.
She probably only ever rode ponies or smallish horses. Perhaps because of that, she never needed a big trailer. Her horse trailer was small, too small for my horse.
So, I already had a horse that was afraid to go into a trailer, and now I had to make him go into a small trailer.

It took me about an hour to lure him onto the ramp with a lot of positive persuasion and a bucket full of oats. He was reaching inside the trailer with his head, nibbling on oats, but if he lifted his head, he hit the ceiling and backed out in panic.
When it became clear that he wasn’t going inside on good terms, I started applying bad terms. I put pressure on him every time he avoided the trailer and gave release when he was near the trailer or on the way into it. I made him move, back up, run in a circle... We tried surrounding him with a lunge line to create a tunnel into the trailer. Looking for a way to escape, he started jumping off the ramp sideways, even through the lunge line. Then I took place on the side and pushed on his behind every time it happened. Generally, it isn’t a good idea to push a panicking horse on his behind due to the possibility of getting kicked - but I was slightly drunk and highly unwilling to sell him to the idiot, so…
Sometimes we changed, and I was pulling my horse from the front while the girl was pushing from behind. He did not kick even when most other horses in that situation would have kicked. But since the girl was only half my size, her push did not matter much. The horse escaped twice, breaking carabiners and running around loose until I got a new rope and caught him again.
After another two hours of this, my horse was soaking wet from sweat - both exhaustion and nerves. Sweat was running down and dripping like rain from his neck and belly. Along more vertical surfaces, it was joining and running down the legs in foamy streams. If we gave him a minute to rest, it was collecting into puddles around his hooves.
The girl did not smile anymore. Her eyes were just as big, only not from joy.
In the end, we tried surrounding him with a lunge line again, and this time it finally worked - seeing no escape, he ran into the trailer. I strapped him in, and we closed the trailer as quickly as possible.
Once trapped inside, he got angry. He started biting everything he could reach and kicking the trailer floor with such force that I got concerned he would make a hole. As long as I stood beside him and held my palm on his soaked neck, he calmed down, but as soon as I came out of the trailer and he was in there alone, he started kicking.
I knew he would stop kicking as soon as they started driving because then he would need all four legs to keep balance. So I moved as quickly as I could. I covered him with his fleece blanket, gave the girl his autumn and winter blankets, and his bridle together with the fitting bit, then we exchanged cash for passport, and now they were good to go.
And then they went.

It must be pretty clear why this was quite a low point of the week. But it wasn’t the lowest point yet.
Later in the week, I learned that my company was going to hire an HR person.
That point was lower.