Barnacle Babe

Barnacle Babe

I’ve learned two important facts in my creative fiction writing class. I’m an idiot, and all my favorite authors are dead. When did that happen? About the dead author part, it’s possible I’ve always been an idiot.

It’s a strange paradox of life that by the time you have something interesting to say, you’re half way to dead and other weird stuff starts happening to you. For example:

(Unexplained Hair Loss) – Parts of my face have started to disappear. My eyebrows are missing. I have to draw my eyebrows on my head with a stencil and a crayon. If I don’t draw eyebrows on my head I look like Queen Elizabeth (not this Queen Elizabeth but that other Queen Elizabeth with no eyebrows.)

(Excess Face) – Not only are my eyebrows missing but when I bend over to pick up my eyebrow crayon, my face slides off my skull bones. It’s creepy. I’ve never had so much excess face. I used to be able to hang upside down on the monkey bars for a long time and my chins never fell over my eyes, blinding me.

(Unexplained Hair Growth) – I don’t want to talk about, but just remember that we all get hairy in the end.

(Memory Loss) – I can’t remember the color of my hair. I know it’s not the color of the girl’s hair on the box. But what color is it? What kind of person can’t remember the color of their own hair?

(Barnacle Growth) – I get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, “What the heck is that growing on my head/neck/chest/eyelid/entire body? It wasn’t there yesterday, and where are my eyebrows?”

(Smart Aleck Doctor’s Comments) – “Oh don’t worry about that bump, lump, mound, or pimple. It’s a barnacle. You’ve been in the water too long.”

(Clock Confusion) – I’ve started to go to bed before the chickens but not to sleep. It’s so people can’t find me, and I can write down all the interesting things I have to say, after having lived long enough to actually have something interesting to say.

According to my creative writing teacher, “If you aren’t writing to make money you’re an idiot.” That makes me an idiot with barnacles and no eyebrows. Could be time to dry dock.

Linda (High Tide) Zern

Cool Not Am I

I moved through the martial arts forms like a small but wiry tiger, my punches clean, my kicks elegant. I prided myself on being able to kick as high as the average bully’s pumpkin head. Think Yoda with arthritis.

Having abandoned dignity some years back, I never held back on the martial arts yelling part. I was always the loudest. My goal was to perfect the shouting bit so that I could kill people by yelling at them. Sometimes I yelled so loud I scared the little kids.

Secretly I was pleased when this happened.

Once in a while, I would lose focus and start to think that I was smooth, hot stuff in my white outfit (size – large child) and the great cosmic force in the universe (whom I like to call God) would orchestrate my downfall—also known as my humiliation.

I moved through the martial arts exercise like a small but wiry tiger, my punches clean, my kicks elegant. Finishing, I slapped the sides of my legs, bowed low from the waist, and allowed myself a small but triumphant smile, feeling like a miniature Ninja warrior.

The woman behind me tapped my shoulder.

I whirled, my tiny fists of fury moving to block any aggression or insult. I thought about kicking her in the head. I yelled—loudly.

She raised one eyebrow.

“Excuse me, but I think you should know that there is a dryer sheet stuck to the back of your uniform. It looks generic."

“Of course there is,” I said. And of course it was a generic brand; everyone knows the generic dryer sheets and the brand name dryer sheets are made in the same darn factory. I’m nobody’s fool.

Reaching back over my shoulder I felt for the offending laundry aid, and because I was fairly warmed up from punching and kicking imaginary pumpkin headed bullies, I was able to contort myself sufficiently, first one way and then the other, to peel the dryer sheet from the middle of my back.

The woman watched, offering no help, hints, or assistance.

I considered kicking her in the head. Instead I balled the dryer sheet up in one hand, demonstrated a perfect roundhouse kick, and promptly wet my pants.

And that’s why I never worry about getting too pleased with myself or snooty. The universe has its eye on me and makes sure to dope slap me right back into my proper place and mind set. As soon as I even start thinking I’m cool I wind up having to wipe my butt with a plane ticket (don’t ask.)

I’m taking no chances on having the universe expose the truly embarrassing craziness about me, or as I like to say to my husband, “Think about it; I haven’t even begun to write about the really funny stuff.”

Linda (Punch Drunk) Zern

Hacked Off

YOU ARE NOT PRESENTLY CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET – (So quit tapping pointlessly at your keyboard, ‘ya big dummy!)

The Internet repairman waved a six-inch length of cable at me. Four murderous gouges nearly severed its smooth cylindrical surface, leaving exposed wires to dissolve in the hostile atmosphere--also rain.

“Wow! Someone really went at this, probably with a shovel or maybe an ax.” He examined the gouges more closely. “Maybe a butcher knife.”

Slowly, I raised my hand and hung my head.

“I did it. I confess. I killed the cable,” I said, feeling sheepish, chagrined, and goofy all rolled into one. “I thought it was just a really stubborn root when I was planting caladiums. Really, really stubborn! A bad stubborn . . . root.”

“You might want to hang on to this.” He handed me the butchered hunk of Internet cable.

“Please, don’t tell my family. This isn’t the first time I killed the cable. The first time, I wasn’t anywhere near it when I ran over it with the lawnmower.”

He began to inch his way to his repair truck, never taking his eyes off of me.

“Sure, lady, sure! Sounds reasonable!” And then under his breathe, “When Dish Network freezes over.” He ran the last few steps to his truck.

I felt bad for frightening the computer repairman that way.

When I was a girl, technical electronic difficulties were handled with tin foil and rabbit ears. There were three television channels and a lot of fuzzy static. The static came in black and white. Computers came in warehouses.

Now technical electronic difficulties are handled with modem connection adjustments, phone calls bounced off of satellites to help centers in places I can’t spell, and appointments with repairmen apparently carrying submarine sonar equipment.

A week after our Internet connection to the worldwide universe went dark, a repairman showed up at our house with his sonar-cable-finding-wand. He checked connections. He climbed poles. He dug up cable. He waved his sonar-cable-finding-wand about.

The whole process reminded me of a water diviner trying to locate water with a forked stick.

When he asked me if there had been any “digging” in the general area of the buried cable, I felt my stomach flip and then flop. Sure there had been digging.

I am a digger. I am a habitual digger. I own five shovels, which I leave stuck in random spots all over our property, and then forget where I stuck them. That’s why there are five shovels.

And no Internet service—temporarily.

There are days I long for tin foil and completing a conversation with my husband without having him go into an unblinking, unrelated conversation with the tooth in his ear. I think the tooth is blue.

Linda (Dirt Digger) Zern