For My Brother (The Reformed Teaser-Slash-Terrorist)

Colic, that’s what causes terrorism.

My brother (as a small boy) was the biggest terrorist I have ever known. In addition, his early colic is legendary. My mother describes falling asleep while standing up, holding my crying brother as his baby bottle nipples melted in a saucepan. When he finally quit being colicky, he started to tease and terrorize.

Therefore, colic causes terrorism.

My theory is that in retaliation for having suffered indigestion for the first six months of his life my brother became a militant, extremist teaser-slash-terrorist or he’s one of those people that finds a calm, safe, peaceful existence boring. People who are born drinking adrenalin like its orange juice.

That’s my second theory.

 As a dedicated teaser-slash-terrorist, my brother was relentless, inventive and unstoppable. Some of his favorite methods of inflicting torture-slash-terror were to flick my ear or jab my ribs until I wanted to perfect my water boarding techniques. A lot of times he liked to knock things down; you know, like sand castles, stacks of blocks, doll houses—me.

Often the ear flicking attacks were without warning or pattern.  Once, when I was trying to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he popped up and started flicking on my ear in a random teasing-slash-terrorist assault.

I told him to stop and began drafting a UN resolution for sanctions against the little pest.

He kept flicking.

I brushed his hand away and threatened drone air strikes.

He came back flicking—harder.

I tried to ignore him while I scooped a giant glob of peanut butter out of the jar with a butter knife.

He flicked away. My ear started to throb. The peanut butter shifted on the knife—slipping and sliding.

Flick. Pause. Flick. Pause. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flickety, flickey, flickey, flick-flick-flick. 

I knocked his hand away and thought about sending in some special forces with a kill order.

He came back flicking.

And on it went, the teasing-slash-terrorism . . . until I whirled on him like a snarling wolverine with opposable thumbs capable of holding a knife. I fully intended to stab him in the stomach. My only hesitation was that I hadn’t upgraded my butter knife to a machete or a bunker buster bomb.

“Stop touching me,” I screamed, “or I’ll stab . . .”

I looked down at the knife blade. It was naked. There was no giant glob of peanut butter. There was nothing but a grease stain where the peanut butter used to be.

“Where did the peanut butter go?”

He shrugged and made a move to flick my ear. Mom walked through the door.  My brother retreated from the field of battle to re-group and look for bomb parts for IED’s.

Over the next few months, I searched the kitchen quietly (strictly black ops) for the missing glob of peanut butter. Flick-boy laid low.

One morning my mother said, “What is that up there?”

“Hurlick?” I mumbled through milk and cereal.

“That, up there, on the wall. What is that?”

I glanced up. High over our heads, in the shadows of the kitchen’s “open beam” ceilings was a streak of oily grease and a petrified wad of peanut butter frozen to the paneled wall.

Dragging a stepladder over to the wall, my mother had finally located the missing peanut butter evidence.

Flick-boy said, “Linda did it.”

I reached for a knife.

The United States Army recognized in my brother a raw talent and made him the boss of all kinds of other folks who, as kids, grew up tormenting their brothers and sisters half to death, and who were addicted to adrenalin. He became a big dog in the army and he got to flick the ears of some really bad boys who deserved it.

And in a great twist of universal teasing, I have a son just like him. God must be a boy.

Linda (It’s not nice to tease the writer sister) Zern

  

Memorial Day

To Staff Sergent Zern and all those who fight, who have fought, and who will yet have to fight for us we say, "Thank you for standing between us and the wolves in the dark."

Traveling Light With Sherwood (the Jackal) Zern

Everyone I can think of wants to survive the mediocrity of their present lives long enough so that they can “be able to travel and see the world.” I can’t figure it out. My husband flies thousands of miles every year as part of his livelihood and when people ask him if he plans to travel when he retires he says, “Only if I’m evading INTERPOL,” which he might have to do if he doesn’t smarten up about travel packing.

Traveling with Sherwood (the Jackal) Zern is enough to make me quite content to keep myself to myself, on my porch, in my rocking chair, watching the neighbor’s cows try to sneak out of their pasture and into another neighbor’s pasture—also I have a fabulous mattress, unmatched by any hotel, hostel, or inn I’ve ever stayed at.

Sherwood is searched at the airport weekly. He is profiled regularly. He is frequently targeted for a “fat deposit anomaly” on his leg. The TSA finds him questionable and for good reason. He packs like the Uni-bomber on vacation.

On a trip to Boston via Logan airport, I stood next to my husband as his luggage went into the x-ray vision machine but never came out. We’d lost the airport luggage lottery—again.

The conveyor belt went forward and backwards. Various frowning TSA folks gathered behind the screen. A few pointed. Frowns deepened. A couple of them peeked at us over the machine with narrowed eyes. It could only mean one thing. Sherwood’s backpack for work was about to have its privacy violated, and we were going to have to watch.

A chatty federal employee, I secretly dubbed Eye-Spy TSA Guy, pulled out of the Jackal’s backpack, and I’m not kidding: a mouse; two, not one, TWO power packs; an external hard drive; one USB cable; other miscellaneous cables, wires, and connectors; a wallet; sunglasses; a cell phone; a cell phone charger; an extra cell phone battery; keys; pens and pencils; books; folders; loose change; and two, not one, TWO laptops.

I’m pretty sure I spotted the remote to our television in the pile, but I couldn’t swear to it.

The Eye-Spy TSA Guy exclaimed in exasperation, “Do you know what all this [word that means poop] looks like?”

We shook our Middle American heads.

“It looks like a crazy ass’d bomb; that’s what it looks like. You should try putting this [word that means poop] in plastic containers, so we can tell what all this junk is.”

“Would Tupperware be best or maybe Rubbermaid?” I said, trying to look cooperative and compliant.

“What’s this? A damn detonator,” he said, holding up a damn detonator looking device.

“Our garage door opener. I think.” I shot Sherwood with visual detonators and evil eye bombs.

Eye-Spy TSA Guy called over his cronies.

“Look at all this crazy ass’d [word that means poop]; he’s got Staples electronic department in here.”

The cronies observed, “Wow, he’s mobile man.”

Sherwood and I laughed nervously. Under my breath I hissed out warnings and dire predictions.

“I ain’t taking the rap for this buddy boy. I’m already wording my statement to turn state’s evidence and ‘cut a deal.’”

Sherwood laughed nervously.

That’s it. Until Sherwood gets that backpack of his under some kind of control, I’m flying solo—in my dreams.

Travel Tip of the Week: Always pack mix-and-match separates and keep your bomb [word that means poop] in Tupperware.

Peace out,

Mrs. Sherwood (the Jackal) Zern

Outfits I Could be Wearing at the Time of my Kidnapping

MY FAVORITE MULTI-PURPOSE OUTFIT

I'm alone quite a bit and worry I'll be carried off by near-sighted sex slavers, so I feel strongly the need to document the outfits I might be wearing at the time of my abduction.

Rubber boots (flower motif) for wading through shite . . . umm . . . stuff, pith helmet to repel diving eagle attack, raggedy vest with large pockets for egg collection and tomato harvesting, comfortable pants that used to be my skinny pants, and gloves for everything.    

College Conspiracy

“He’s not there.” Sarah, my daughter-in-law, said.

Strains of the processional music continued to pound through the Harold & Ted Sports Center as the Rollins College graduates tromped by in their dignified acetate gowns. The relief on their faces bordered on spiritual delirium.

“There are only two hundred and fifty graduates. It’s not like we could have missed him. Good grief. Did anybody see Adam?” I prompted.

The blank looks on the faces of our family bordered on stupefying.

“He’s not there; I looked.” Sarah swayed like a blue orchid in the breeze one hand on her camera, one hand at her throat. She peeled her hand off her throat and stared at the palm of her hand. “The palms of my hands are getting sweaty. Where could he be?”

We all stared at the, now sitting, graduates in their identical, dignified acetate gowns.

“Look for a skinny neck,” I advised, “and slumpy shoulders.”

Several people squinted. No. Nope. Nada. Nothing. No Adam skinny neck sightings. I’d like to say we waited for several minutes to concoct impossible conspiracy theories, built on implausible bits of logic, mixed with low levels of radioactive cynicism, but I can’t.  The goofy theories were immediate.

“I hope he didn’t get kidnapped.”  (His wife) “Or robbed, or raped.”

“He’s at the wrong graduation ceremony.”  (His sister)

“Or we’re at the wrong graduation ceremony.” (His other sister)

“Oh man, he’s speaking, and it’s a trick so that we have to listen to him give a speech.” (The sister who thought Adam had wandered into the wrong graduation ceremony)

“I know; he’s getting an award, and it’s a surprise.”  (His mother)

“The whole thing has been a ruse; he’s only been pretending to go to college at night for years and years, and it’s all coming undone. He never graduated.” (His father with a moan)

“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s getting a prize.”  (His mother again)

“I’ve never heard so much bad Intel, and I work in Afghanistan.” (His brother)

“Do you think he’s fainted, fallen, or broken something?”  (His wife again)

“Daddy?” (One of his daughters)

I looked harder at the fidgeting group of graduates in their seats and there under the 1971 banner was a neck, ears, and shoulders I recognized, because I’d washed behind those ears, kissed that baby neck, and patted those shoulders more than once, back when he was just a sunny little boy who loved baseball and Ninja Turtles—back when he brought me fists full of crushed wildflowers with the roots still attached, back when he belonged to me and only me, back when he was mine.

“There he is.”

A collective sigh of relief went up from the group as Adam Carter Zern graduated Summa Cum Laude from Rollins College.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  I like to think we are a reasonably intelligent family. Several of us have college degrees of our very own and the United States government trusts one of us with expensive weapons systems, but sometimes we can be full on dopey.

Linda L. Zern (Mother of the Graduate)

            

QUICKIES: Postings that are Short and Sweet


Florida Love-Bugs rode into Florida on the backs of fire ants from South America--not really, but wouldn't that be funny. Love-Bugs are flies. Love-Bugs are harmless. Love-Bugs fly around while copulating. Love-Bugs are embarrassing. Squashed Love-Bug juice, if left unwashed on the front of your car, will eat the paint off. Love-Bugs were not created in a lab at the University of Florida--despite urban myths and conspiracy theories.


"They're all over me. They must think I am their queen," said Zoe, who lives to become the queen of some (any) animal species.  

Raise the Roof

FACT:  The average human female (domesticus raise the rooficus) can lift approximately 77, 000 times her own body weight.

I know because I, myself, have been known to lift small automobiles. Why? Because I was rearranging, of course, and the car looked bad where it was—also for purposes of spring-cleaning.

During the period of time when we moved—from Florida (the motherland) to North Carolina (not the Motherland) and then moved back to Florida (now the blessed motherland) and house sat for six months in Winter Springs (Mildew Palace-there’s a story there) and then moved to an Oviedo apartment (underneath the apartment of some frat boys and their blowup doll) and then we moved to a condo in Celebration (Dr. Suess world)—we managed to drag our stuff from Hither-Town to Yon-ville—also two fledgling kids and one cat.

For two hundred and fifty dollars a month, our stuff lived in luxury and ease in a climate controlled storage unit on Aloma Avenue, until I decided our stuff needed rearranging—also moving—again.

One minute I’m looking at our stuff, not liking the way it looks all jumbled in that storage unit for two hundred and fifty bucks a month, and the next minute I’m hauling boxes roughly the size of dumpsters around and trying to shove them into the trunk of a Grand Am, by myself.

How did I do it? I am domesticus raise the rooficus. I employed the scoot, tip, walk, creep, tilt, tip, swing, drag, and counter balance method of moving asteroid sized objects. If I can budge it, I can move it.

Take for example, a wardrobe box (taller than my five foot, one inch head) I became determined to move. I immediately recognized that the wardrobe box would be easy to tip over.

FACT:  For the domesticus raise the rooficus this is not a learned knowledge; it is purely instinctive. Tall boxes fall over like dominoes set up by a drunk.

I began by jamming myself between the wall and the wardrobe box, and I pushed it over. Once the box was on its side, I attempted to employ the dragging method. But this was one tall mother . . . of a box (also heavy,) and it did not respond to the dragging method.

Never one to say, “You’re going to rupture something.”

I next attempted the walking method. This method consists of wedging oneself between the wall and the tall (also heavy) box and kicking it from one side, moving it three inches to the right. I repeated this action on the other side, moving it three inches to the left and a fraction of an inch forward. This is called “walking” the box.

Forty-seven years, I mean minutes, later, the tall (also heavy) box was in the parking lot, and I was trying to decide which method to employ to lift the sucker into the trunk of my car. Let me put it this way. I know how they built the pyramids with only croc dung and sticks.

I continued to move mountains all weekend.

On Monday, I was afraid I’d given myself a do-it-yourself hysterectomy, so I begged my teenage son to help me. He could tuck multiple boxes under each hairy armpit and slouch with them to the car. I remain envious.

“See son, I’ve been lifting boxes roughly the size of bunk beds. Can you help me?”

“Mother,” he began, while grazing from a bag of dusty Doritos and sitting on a couch I had carried in on my back, “you know how I feel about the entire cycle of packing and moving and packing and moving, again and again, in an endless spiral of cascading doom brought on by our overdependence on material items used to define and validate ourselves in a corrupt society. You know I want to be an intenerate soapbox lecturer without purse or script.” He grazed on.

“I think my hysterectomy is flaring up.”

Raising a disdainful eyebrow, he said, “Hummmph!”

“Did you know that I can life approximately 77, 000 times my own body weight?”

“Then what do you need me for?” he said.

“Get up and help me, or I’ll tip you over and use the tilt-kick-drag moving method on you.”

“Let me get my shoes,” he said.

FACT: A drone is just a teenager without a couch.

Oh, by the way, do you want to know what was in the wardrobe box (taller than my own head)?  There were two tons of teenage son’s Star Wars memorabilia including light saber and pose able action figures—overdependence, my eye.

Have a great week and don’t lift anything heavier than a hamster wheel.

Linda (Queen of the Drone People) Zern