"Lookit that horse!" says one fellow.
"That ain't no horse," retorts his companion. "That's a donkey!"
Sometimes I'm called upon to referee the debate. Or more often, I jump in uninvited. In either case I explain that both parties are half-right. "This is a mule. A mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse."*
My colleagues and I generally explain to our passengers as a matter of course what a mule is and why we use only mules. We tell people that mules take the heat better than horses and that we are required by city law to use mules. The part about it being city law is only partly true. The law actually specifies the use of mules only during the summer months and then only during daylight. But given that we have to use mules for three months of the year, there's no good reason not to use them year round. Maintaining and moving two different types of animals would mean extra expense and logistical headaches for the carriage companies. Besides, a lot of my co-workers who have experience with both horses and mules insist that mules are stronger, smarter and superior in pretty much every way.
Not everyone who takes the tour needs to be educated about mules. There are plenty of people who have experience with equines and who consider it an insult to their intelligence if you try to explain to them what a mule is. With a carriage full of strangers, it's hard to know whether to aim high or low. If there's a child on board, then it makes it easier to educate the ignorant without offending the expert.
"You see Rock there?" I say addressing myself to the child while everyone else listens in. "See his ears? He's got his daddy's ears. His daddy was a donkey, and his mama was a horse. Do you know what that makes him?"
There was one little girl who quickly did the mental calculation and came back at me with a brilliant answer, though not the one I was expecting: "A honky!"
As you can well imagine, we carriage drivers hear (and tell) all kinds of ass jokes, over and over, day in and day out. Here's a sampling:
- One carriage driver colleague, in the course of educating her passengers, likes to tell them that a mule is a "half-assed horse." While this may not be the most hilarious of the ass jokes, it's the only one that is wholly accurate. (An ass is another name for a donkey. Actually, if you want to get really technical, donkeys are one of several subspecies that fall into the category of "ass".)
- A pedicab colleague is fond of pointing me out to his riders and telling them: "That's Mark. He has the best ass in town!" This one is wrong on so many levels, that I hardly know where to start. Apart from the aforementioned fact that Rock is only half ass on his sire's side, he's far from the best mule in town. They say that back in his heyday he really was one of the best mules in the Royal Carriages stable. Nowadays, I love him to death, and he really loves to get out there and work. But he's almost 30 years old, and truth be told he's a plug. (See number 9.) As to the flip side of the double entendre... Well, let's just say that Rock's pushing 30, and I'm sneaking up on 50.
- A carriage driver colleague, trying to load up his buggy, shouts at passers-by: "Come on, people. Put my ass to work!"
- One African-American carriage driver points to another and says: "Look there folks. That's something you don't see every day: A black man with a white ass!" I love this one, but as an honest-to-goodness honky, I don't think I could get away with using it.
- And finally, my very own ass joke. When discussing my two jobs I like to tell people, "When I'm working the carriage, and someone wants to feed my ass a carrot, I don't have a problem with that. But when I'm on the pedicab, it's another matter." Call it a double standard if you will, but that's just the way I am.
* Just in case you're wondering, the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey is called a hinny. Hinnies are harder to produce and are generally considered less desirable than mules.
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