I’m fortunate in boarding my horse where there’s good camaraderie among the horses and their owners. Last Saturday, I rode in the morning. Another boarder was at the barn, soaking her horse’s foot (he had stepped on a nail and had a puncture wound), and another was out messing around with her horse. The barn owner gave lessons all morning. By about noon, we had all finished our separate activities.

The barn owner has just built a deck on her house and her truck was loaded with discarded scraps and junk. The gals asked me if I wanted to go with them to the dump. I laughed and suggested that maybe I had something better to do with my time than go to the dump. And obviously with three of them, they didn’t need my help.

Before long they had prevailed upon me and the four of us were headed out on a road trip — eight miles to the county dump. On the way home, though, instead of going back the same route, they turned right, and three miles down the road, pulled into a roadside ice cream shop.

It seems that “going to the dump” was code language for the ritual of going out for ice cream after getting rid of junk. We filled up on some local favorite ice cream concoction packed with chocolate (of course), peanut butter, caramel, and a gazillion calories. We had great fun, convincing ourselves how important going to the dump was.

What was important is the fellowship, the memories we are creating. Ten years from now when we talk about our time at the barn, it won’t be about riding circles in the arena. It will be about all the other silly activities that surround riding, and the times we pulled together, cared about what’s happening in each other’s lives, and had a few laughs.

There’s a lot of serious stuff going on in the world right now. Is there any way you could “go to the dump” (wink, wink) this week? Interrupt someone’s schedule and just have a few minutes of fun. You can work off the calories later.