Word Rabies

“I knew foxes are quite often rabid, so I knew he was up to no good.”

This is a direct quote.

It is a direct quote from a North Carolina woman who woke up to find a rabid fox attacking her foot. She was in bed, her own—sleeping, at night, inside her house. The house had walls, windows, doors, and a roof. It was not a tree house or mud hut. She was not lost in the black forest. 

This is a direct quote, which I believe to be a shining example of an understatement.

“Up to no good.” Are you kidding? The fox was gnawing on her foot. It had managed to tunnel, smash, jimmy, or squeeze its way into this woman’s home, climb onto her bed, locate her vulnerable naked foot flesh, and zero in on its toe target—all why being infected with a hideous, fatal disease. How? Why? What the **hell?

“Up to no good.”  You mean the way Darth Vader was “up to no good?”

I love words, and as a writer, I am constantly fascinated with styles and methods of word usage via various forms of communication. How much is too much? How much is not enough? And how much is just plain kooky talk? Here’s a look at various forms of communication as it relates to rabid fox attacks, an important topic for the New Year, certainly.

An understatement is (according to the big book of word meanings) an intentional lack of emphasis in expression. For example:  I knew foxes are quite often rabid, so I knew he was up to no good. Duh!

Or,

That fox was like having a pack of teething toddlers chewing their way through my toe bits. This statement being an example of hyperbole, which is an exaggeration or extravagant statement, which differs from an exaggeration—somehow, but I’m still a little shaky on exactly how it differs.

The word exaggerate comes from a Latin word meaning to “pile up” or “heap.”  For example: There was a dumpster full of foxes heaped up in my bed—draining blood out of my body through my foot.

A question is an expression of inquiry that invites or calls for a reply. Is that a rabid fox attacking my foot? Honey, where’s the club?

An exclamation is an abrupt, forceful utterance; an outcry. Holy . . . mother . . . puss bucket! Smack it again! Harder!

The popular exclamation is often followed by or capped off with a declaration (An unsworn statement of facts that is admissible as evidence.) I found it, the clause in the insurance policy that covers rabid fox attacks—inside the house, under a king sized quilt. You’re covered.

Since the time this incident was first reported, I’ve taken to sleeping in my rubber garden boots and holding a crowbar in my clenched fist.

 So far, I’ve managed to avoid any ugly incidents where my husband staggers home some midnight hour from the airport, only to be welcomed with a crowbar up ‘side the head.

Whereupon I would have to declare, “But Officer, I thought my husband was a rabid fox up to no good.”

Linda (Hyperbolism Forever) Zern

** Please note: That although there are almost no situations in which I will make use of an expletive in my writing, there are a very few—one being rabid fox attacks or, possibly, pinworm infestations.   

A Thank You To Mrs. Teemant's Students From A Soldier's Mom

Remembering Aric's first homecoming and looking forward to his fourth homecoming in August 2011

Dear Mrs. Teemant and Students,

I am the mother of Staff Sergeant Aric Zern of “Baker Company” of the “1-506,” which is a combat unit out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. This is a famous combat unit that many people might recognize from the HBO miniseries A Band of Brothers.


They are presently serving in Southeast Afghanistan on the Pakistan/Afghan border. It’s a combat unit, which means that they are actively searching for and engaging “bad guys” (bomb makers, gun runners, terrorists, and drug dealers.) The soldiers go on patrol in the mountains of Afghanistan for weeks at a time.

When the soldiers are on patrol they go without clean clothes, showers, or hot food, which means that when they come back to base and find packages, like the ones you sent, it makes them feel absolutely wonderful.

Your gifts help remind them who they are fighting for, and that person is you and Afghan children like you.

Your packages let the soldiers know that they haven’t been forgotten.

As the mother of a soldier, who is far away and fighting in a very dangerous place, your gifts make me and my family feel wonderful and grateful. It helps me know that the sacrifices our combat soldiers make are all worth it, because you are the kind of Americans who don’t just think about helping others. You are the kind of Americans who actually get up and do good things for others—just like soldiers.

Thank you so much.

For security reasons SSG Zern can’t tell me very much about where he is or what he is doing, but he has shared a few things you might find interesting about Afghanistan.  There is only one major paved highway in the entire country (making mail difficult to deliver); the average life expectancy is forty-seven years old; in the four months he’s been deployed he has seen three Afghan women; many of the people are descended from Genghis Khan’s Mongolian invaders; and most of the population cannot read or write.

Finally, SSG Zern would like for you to know that of all the people in the world, who wish for peace, pray for peace, and long for peace on earth, no one desires it more completely than the American combat soldier. But until that time, please know, SSG Zern and his men will be standing guard in the night so that you and your family can sleep safely in your beds.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Linda L. Zern (Proud Mother of an American Soldier)

The Book of Zern (The Chapter Following the Last One)

1.     These are the words of Linda, Queen and Groundskeeper of our people—even the YaYa Zern.

2.     Speaking forth those words to them that will hear, in this season of both Internet shopping and good-will-wishing under the mistletoe kissing.

3.     Yea, the days of our tribe did pass away this selfsame year as if in a dream—fueled by both: food that is fast and takeout Fridays.

4.     For I did yet hearken unto the nagging of my children and did continue to seek learning and knowledge—even at Rollins College, an Ivey league school or at least a school with Ivey that groweth upward upon the bricks of the walls.

5.     And the Queen’s children, even my own seed, did covet much of my excellent bedroom furniture and my fine credit rating.

6.     Surely, I did chastise them and say to them, doth the Queen have need of another pillow top mattress? Or doth the Queen not have power to write much of their deeds and doings and make it known to all the people round about?

7.     I say nay, or yea, or I shalt get back to thee.

8.     And Sherwood also called the King and First Rocker of Babies—in that not one of our people, could maketh a baby cease its wailing and sleep sound as he doth—did continue to tap much upon his computer keys in the language of acronym.

9.     For he did work much for the Babylonians in the land of the mighty lakes.

10.  Having gone forth, both Sherwood and his father, to Fort Campbell, Kentucky to retrieve SSG Aric Zern’s Jeep Sport Wrangler and drive it forth to our own land, so that when returning from the mountain wars of Afghanistan, Aric might come forth to claim his red Jeep chariot.

11.   Likewise, I did go forth, driving the red Jeep to the city gates and Wal-Mart and Gold’s Gym—while playing loudly of the drum and harp and thinking on sons who fight in far and distant lands.

12.   And Adam, even the youngest son said unto the world, I do make an end of learning in the spring, then my life will be as the voice of the Turtledove. And we, even his family, did mock him to laughter, but he did withstand all our mocking.

13.   He being strengthened in all things by his goodly wife, even Sarah, she having already made an end of her learning at BYU.

14.   And Heather did bring forth one Zachary called Flap Jack and Maren did bring forth Reagan called after a Republican, with their husband’s, one Phillip of Bountiful and T. J. of Titusville.

15.   And I said unto the daughters of our tribe, gird they sword upon they thigh and tighten all thy buttons for the children doth require thee to be stronger, longer than they.

16.   For they did number seven: Zoe the Woman-Child (7); Conner the Much Forgiven (4); Emma the Careful (5); Kip the Daring (2) and Sadie the Dramatic (2) and, of course, Zachary and Reagan (4 and 5 months in their first year.)

17.   Thus saith the YaYa, that I make an end of these words for this merry season of Christmas and doth wish goodness and joy on all those who dare to pick roses despite the thorns.

This old world sure is fine and mighty hard to beat.

With every rose you get a thorn, but ain’t the roses sweet.

Anonymous

Gator Up

A full-grown American alligator raced across the road, right in front of a taxicab full of tourists. I was driving my husband to the Orlando International Airport at the time.

“Hey, wasn’t that an alligator running across the road?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Can you imagine being in a taxi on your first trip to Florida and seeing an alligator run across the road?”

“Yep.”

Sherwood doesn’t let a whole bunch excite him.

Which is a good quality, because when our boys were young it was nothing for us to have to make strange alligator related rules, like:

“Aric, you are not allowed to ask Adam, your smaller and younger brother, to jump on the back of alligators that you catch on fishing poles.”

Or,

“Adam, you are never, ever to do anything that your brother tells you to do—EVER.”

Occasionally, before nodding off to sleep, I would ask my husband, “Do you think Aric is trying to kill Adam via an alligator related hunting accident?”

He would say, “Yep.”

Alligators are a real conservation success story. On the verge of disappearing into the endless kiosk of designer handbags and boots, they’ve come back to threaten the safety of every poodle in the state of Florida.

Or as we like to say, “You can hardly spit around here without an alligator crawling into the damp spot. They’re everywhere.”

In Florida if there’s water, eventually, an alligator is going to crawl into it or through it on its way to a better damp spot or date. We lived on a small lake which forced us to develop the Zern Family ‘Gator Capture and Relocation Program. The program worked liked this:

1) Adam would mimic the grunt of a baby alligator (no one can grunt like my Adam.) Adam’s ‘gator grunt attracted adult alligators the way farting the alphabet attracts Cub Scouts.

2) Alligators would glide in like heat seeking missiles.

3) Aric would then flip a bit of a chicken’s inside parts, on a hook, in front of the cruising reptile (no one can fish with chicken gizzards like my Aric.) Worked every time or just about.

4) And then Aric would yell. “Adam, jump on the alligator’s back.”

After that they’d tape the ‘gator’s mouth shut, heft it in their arms, and bring it into our bedroom to show Mom and Dad. We would be napping at the time.

Another Zern family rule stated, “Never, ever bring alligators in to wake up Mommy and Daddy from their nap, because Mommy hates to wet the bed. (It’s so important to explain rules to children, don’t you think?)

At this point Sherwood would roll out of bed, muttering things.

“It’s like living in an episode of . . . flipping . . . wild . . . flipping . . . kingdom.”

Making the boys toss the alligator in the back of our truck, he’d then help them take it down the road to release it in someone else’s pond.

I would remain at home stripping sheets off the bed.

Let me shatter some alligator myths for my friends around the global water cooler. Alligators are not ambitious. If you fall into their mouths, they might take advantage of the situation. But they don’t plot.

Alligators are not like us; they are cold-blooded and the reason that they’re hanging out in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie is to get warm, not stalk you or your groceries.

Alligators are not mean. I once saw a baby alligator riding through the swamp on the nose of a gigantic Mommy alligator. How heart warming is that?

Of course, when the Mommy alligator started swimming toward us the park ranger screamed, “Run!”

Alligators are not clever. Adam and Aric outwitted them on a regular basis with a fake ‘gator call and some chicken livers.

My husband flies to Detroit, Michigan for work and takes taxi cabs from the airport to his hotel.

I asked him, “What would run across the road in front of your taxicab in Detroit?”

He said, “An out-of-work auto worker.”

Scary.

Linda (‘Gator Bait) Zern

Hot Dogs - Another Sherwood (The Traveling Man) Essay

My youngest child, Adam, got married September 8th, making my nest officially empty—not one child with my DNA living anywhere on or near my property—not in a bedroom, mother-in-law quarters, barn, or in a tent next to the Butterfly Palm in the front pasture. 

But don’t worry about me. I’m getting a dog, and I’m naming the dog Adam.

I’ve gone back to college, which means I have homework now, so while Adam’s been on his honeymoon I swept all his junk into a laundry basket and stole his desk, oh wait . . . my desk.
 Now it’s just me and my darling husband of twenty-eight years. 

Oh, and the dog named Adam—when I get it.

I just hope the dog is less gassy than my darling husband of twenty-eight years.

Sherwood travels. Sherwood travels a lot and when he travels, he tends to eat unsavory, if not downright poisonous foodstuffs—in airports, on the run, without much thought or judgment, and at his age the results can be unsavory if not downright poisonous—sometimes volcanic.

After a recent flight home, Sherwood began exhibiting the ominous rumblings and the strange expulsions of an airport dinner gone massively wrong.

“Oh my goodness, what is going on with you?” I waved a hand wildly in front of my nose.

“A Coney Island foot long hotdog.” He frowned and burped.

“What were you thinking?” I said, horrified. “A man your age should know bet . . .”



“With chili—the hotdog had chili. A foot long chili dog.”

He rolled on the bed and groaned while various noises emanated from various parts of his person.

“Whatever you ate isn’t dead yet. It’s still making sounds. How could you possibly survive two hours on an airplane in your condition?”

“The real question is, how did the other passengers survive two hours on an airplane—with me.”



I gasped for air and clawed at my chest. “You . . . did . . . not!”

“Oh I did—a lot. I let it rip; I had to or die, but I pulled a blanket over myself and pretended to be asleep. No one knew that it was me.”

Shocked by his crazed optimism, I said, “Oh they knew. Believe me, they knew. Babe, you live alone in a hotel room way too much if you think people on that airplane didn’t notice the green methane cloud hovering over your seat.”

A volcano rumbled somewhere near the place where pizza goes to die in my husband’s insides.

“I am pretty disgusting.” 



It seemed pointless to disagree with the obvious, so I smiled a crooked smile and tried not to breathe.

He lay on the bed like something washed up on the beach after a bad oil spill. Putting his hands behind his head, he rumbled and gurgled—thinking deep and meaty thoughts.

“You know what I am?”



I couldn’t imagine. The truth is, I couldn’t get enough fresh air to form a coherent thought.

“I’m a modern day mountain man.” The volcano erupted—once, twice.

I was momentarily blinded.

“You mean like one of those guys who used to live in the mountains, in caves, wrapped in animal skins, wandering around—alone—talking trash to a donkey, looking for beavers to bash on the head? That kind of mountain man?”

The volcano complained but did not erupt.

“Absolutely.”

I sighed. “And just think, now that Adam is married it’s just you and me and whatever you decide to eat on your way home.”

“That’s right.” He visibly brightened. “And that means we can run around the house naked if we want.” 


“Is that something a modern day mountain man would do, you think?”

He burped and bubbled. “Absolutely.”



“Hey, I want to be a mountain girl. Can I have a dog?”

Don’t you worry about me; I’m back in college, I’ve got a great new desk to do my homework on, and I’m getting a dog. And if life gets dark and dreary, I have my darling husband of twenty-eight years who, by all accounts, is a modern day mountain man. Top that.

Happy to be getting a dog,

Linda (Hold the Chili) Zern 

 



Two Girls and a Kitty Cat

“But I want to be a kitty cat,” Emma (age five) said.

I found this a little surprising. Usually Emma wants to be a sparkle unicorn. I looked at Zoe and Isabel (both six) to assess the degree that diplomatic negotiations had deteriorated in little girl world.

“Well that sounds like a lot of fun. I like to pretend I’m a kitty cat all the time, and then I take a nap on a rug in the sun.”

Zoe and Isabel ignored me. What I liked, wished, or wanted was pointless to the debate, that was obvious.

“But we want to play ‘three sisters,’ not ‘two sisters and a kitty cat,’” Zoe said. Her chin was lifted. Her arms crossed. Negotiations had reached the crisis point.

Isabel nodded and crossed her arms. I tried the bright side approach.

“But doesn’t ‘two sisters and a kitty cat’ sound like some fun.”

“No.” Zoe added a frown to her crossed arms.

“Why?”

“Because we always play ‘two sisters and a kitty cat.’ We want Emma to be a girl, not an animal.”

Emma moaned or maybe meowed.

“Because,” Zoe continued, “if Emma is a kitty cat then we have to chase her with nets and try to catch her.”

I could see their point. I hate when I have to chase my friends with nets. It’s fun for a couple of spins around the old track and field but before you know it, you’re dizzy and thirsty.

“But I want to be a kitty cat,” Emma said. She then began to groom herself with her tongue.

We were at an impasse—‘two sisters and a kitty cat’ is not ‘three sisters and no kitty cat,’ no matter how you slice the cat treats. Someone was going to be sad, mad, or disappointed. I was fresh out of win-win solutions for girl-world, so I retreated to grown up got-no-clue-world.

“Well, you girls work it out,” I said.

And that’s when Zoe lobbed a surface to air missile at a small South Korean island. NO! I’m kidding. Actually, I don’t know what happened. No punches were thrown. No screaming was overheard. No missiles were launched.

“Well, you girls work it out,” I had said.

And they did.

Somehow, someway, they did— without adult intervention. I wish I’d eavesdropped.

When I was a kid living in Titusville, our moms would kick us out of the house in the morning, throw PBJ sandwiches at us at noon, make us drink water out of the hose, and not let us come inside until the mosquito fog trucks rolled down Rose Marie Drive. We, the neighborhood kids, played hopscotch and Chinese jump rope like they were Olympic sports, snitched drywall chalk from construction sites, and played stickball until someone got mad or hurt. If you went inside you had to take a nap. No one went inside.

Parents were not consulted unless stitches were required.

The big kids were the bosses and the little kids were allowed to live and play, if we did it quietly and didn’t whine.

It wasn’t fair. It was life. It was good preparation for the world as it would be, not as we wished it could be. And we learned to work it out.

Zoe stomped into her grandfather’s home office frustrated with her five-year old cousin.

“Poppy, I just want Emma to be a regular girl and play with me.”

“What does Emma want?” he asked.

“To be a sparkle unicorn. Emma always wants to be a sparkle unicorn or a white seal.”

“Well, what should we do about that?”

Zoe batted her eyelashes.

“Poppy? Will you be a girl and come and play with me?”

“Sure. But why don’t we let Emma play too and be a sparkle unicorn?”

“Okay.”

And they worked it out.

Linda (Regular Girl) Zern

Travel Fast, Travel Naked

I sent my husband to the airport with the following note:

Dear TSA and Department of Homeland Security,

Please excuse my husband from being felt up by strange men every single week because of his anomaly. His anomaly is just fat. His doctor says its just “one of those things,” and he’s had this pocket or lump of fat for thirty years. It is benign. It poses no threat to national security. It is entirely a coincidence that the fat deposit appears to be living in the pocket of his pants.

Sincerely, His Wife

PS

I believe the fat deposit is the place where all the bacon my husband eats goes to die.

“How did the note from your wife [that would be me] go over with the TSA?” I wanted to know.

“It didn’t.”

“Didn’t you get felt up again, anomaly boy?”

“Nope, I just didn’t get into the naked-scanner-junk-touching line.”

“But I thought . . .”

“Nope. Not all the security lines have the Peeping Tom machines. I just got in the regular line: shoes, belt, laptop.”

He looked at me. I looked at him.

“Do you think the terrorists know about this regular line stuff?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” he said, shrugging.

“Tell me something. If you were a terrorist, would you put powdered bomb bits in your panties or in one of those Christmas salamis you can mail to Greenland via the cargo hold of a big old airplane full of cheerleaders on their way to Disney World?”

I looked at him. He looked at me.

“So you probably won’t need that note about your fat lump anymore?”

“Nope. Besides I have a plan of my own to protest the Peeping Tom machines next time I get stuck in one of those lines.”

“Do I want to know?”

He looked at me. I looked at him—with squinty eyes.

He got that “I’ve been a bad boy since I was twelve” look on his face.

“I’ll show the TSA an anomaly they won’t soon forget.”

“Will this display be animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

He smiled.

People criticize me for watching cable news every waking hour of every waking day, but what they don’t understand is that I HAVE to watch cable news non-stop. How else am I going to know when Sherwood’s carted off to TSA strip search land, deported to the gulag of misfit toys, and branded a dirty rotten salami smuggler? Hmmmmmm?

Linda (Travel Advisory!) Zern

Monkey Chic

“You can’t wear seventeen monkeys to church.”

Zoe, my six-year old granddaughter, had come to church literally draped in monkeys. She had two to twenty monkeys Velcro-ed around her neck. There were monkey bracelets wrapped around her wrists. She had thrown a monkey backpack over her shoulders and topped the entire monkey collection off with a monkey hat.

Zoe glowed with pride in her accessorizing acumen.

She looked like a zoo exhibit had exploded onto her body.

The ensuing conversation between Zoe’s father and Zoe (better known as Cheetah Girl Queen of the Jungle) over the appropriate number of monkeys a person should wear to church lasted the major part of our church service and included tears, frustration, and gnashing of teeth. And that was just the Dad.

Arguments that do not work to de-monkey a monkey girl include:

“Zoe, no one else is wearing thirty-three monkeys to church.”

“Zoe, mommy isn’t wearing twenty-seven monkeys to church.”

“Zoe, all those monkeys are going to scare the babies.”

“Zoe, no one will be able to concentrate on the service, because they’ll be trying to count the monkeys on your body.”

“Zoe, all the other children will want your monkeys and they’ll cry.”

“Zoe, the monkeys are making your father break out in monkey pox.”

“Zoe, you’re going to cause a riot.”

“Zoe, take off the monkeys.”

“Zoe, NO MONKEYS!”

“Oh, let her wear the monkeys.” This from her Poppy, who would let the grandchildren go to church in their underwear, carrying flyswatters if they wanted to.

There are people who climb great mountains. There are people who explore active volcanoes. There are people who show up at Wal-Mart at four in the morning, on black Friday, to be the first to buy the Griddler by Cuisinart for one dollar.


These people are known as thrill seekers—also nuts.

All of these people combined cannot hope to experience the stamina and courage required to argue the taste level of monkey fashion with a six-year old. Parenting is the ultimate extreme sport, right up there with bungee jumping into a river using a chain of monkeys Velcro-ed to a bridge railing.

For one long year, my youngest son, Adam, refused to leave the house until his sisters tied his hair up in a rubber band. His hair stuck out of his head like a hair horn, but since he was my fourth child and my second son, I knew better than to care. I was numb, which is another way of saying I had cried, “Uncle,” quietly.

When Adam could finally talk, he told us his rubber-banded hair horn was his “feather.” Who knew Adam had been embracing his Native American heritage and had been reaching out to his ancestors all that time?

Climb a great mountain if you must. Dance about the rim of a spewing volcano if you dare.


But if you really want the thrill of unpredictability, the raw terror of potential destruction, or the rush that comes from a total loss of control, then go car shopping with a four-year old boy. A boy who, at any moment, might drop his pants so that he can take a whiz on the tire of a brand new Lincoln Town Car— in public—in the showroom—in front of the entire sales force of The Central Florida Lincoln-Mercury dealership.


(We bought the Cougar station wagon. We did not get the special discount.)


Or you can attempt to convince Zoe that wearing a mob of monkeys hanging from every appendage just “isn’t done” in polite society, which is like trying to convince cannibals that boiled meat is not fine dining.

Linda (Monkey Tamer) Zern