I’ve seen this picture twice now on Twitter. The story is that a farmer was denied a permit to build a horse shelter so he builds a giant table and chairs which don’t need a permit. Brilliant, right?

It’s a cool story but according to Snopes it’s not true.

Although the photographs are real, the claim about the giant furnishings’ having originated as a way of skirting the law is a bit of fiction: the structures were built to serve the dual purpose of providing some shelter for the equines and serving as a visual advertisement for their owner’s business.

I haven’t had a chance to do this in a while but here’s some advice for when this story starts to show up in your inbox with lots of FWs in the subject line. Hit reply all and link back to the story on Snopes. It’s kind of a jerky thing to do — it’s just a story about horses! — but every time you do it one less email gets sent out about autism being linked to vaccines, Barack Obama being born outside of the states, or whatever nonsense is being spread around right now. I don’t really know. I don’t get these emails anymore.

That said, I wish the story was true. The real story kind of sucks.