BORN FEET FIRST

It’s my birthday month!

Here are some birthday facts:

I was born feet first. My mother liked to tell me that if I had been born in a primitive country they would have left me on a flat rock to starve to death or be eaten by dingoes. To this day I have an irrational fear of flat rocks.

When my father was told he had a daughter he said a bad word, which my mother recorded in my baby book. I suspect the last three words I will say in this lifetime will be bad. It's in my DNA.

My baby brother was born fifteen months after me. He bit me a lot. In all my baby pictures I’m wearing long sleeves to cover the bite marks. The official story is that my brother was colicky, but I suspect demon possession and foul play.

I grew up small, wearing a size two in the first grade, and big kids used to sit on me on the school bus. I never climbed the rope, but I could read before anybody else in my class.

In high school, I attracted my husband by wearing pink shorts and a pink “Sweet Honesty” t-shirt. I haven’t worn pink shorts in a very long time, but I still wear “Sweet Honesty” perfume. He’s still attracted.

We married and had four children—none of which were born feet first—but all of which have birthdays and belly buttons.

I spent the WORST birthday of my life hanging from the second story eaves of our house in North Carolina, cleaning the gutters out before the big ice storm froze the water and gutter sludge in the gutters, forcing it up under the shingles, causing our roof to leak. It had already started to sleet when Sherwood made me climb the ladder, because he was too tubby to climb the ladder, and I wasn’t strong enough to hold a tubby man on a two-story ladder.

It was terrible. There were frozen earthworms in those filthy gutters, and my gloves iced over in minutes, if not seconds. I couldn’t move my fingers, so I just sort of clubbed the icy muck out with my hands frozen into rigor-mortis claws. I cried. The tears froze to my cheeks. I sad bad words and condemned my husband’s use of procrastination as an alternative lifestyle choice. I turned forty-four that day and aged twelve years.

The moral of the story is that it would have cost forty-bucks to have a truck full of ethnic gentlemen from Mexico clean out our gutters. They were sad when I didn’t hire them. I was sad too.

This year was a good birthday year. I turned fifty-plus, mowed the yard, and cleaned out the chicken coop.

It could have been a lot worse, believe me. My family could have put me out on an ice flow shaped like a flat rock.

Linda (Birthday Babe) Zern

Humble Pie is Yucky

According to one of those online dictionaries that defines weirdo sayings and expressions like ‘selfie’ or ‘awesome sauce’ the phrase ‘humble pie’ means: to have to apologize and/or face HUMILIATION and originated from the dish "umbles pie" which peasants ate in medieval times (umbles are the innards of deer/cow/boar/whatever else was lying around).

Pig guts. That sounds about right.

Facing humiliation is one of the skills I list on my resume.

It has been my observation over a lifetime of humble pie eating that as soon as I start thinking that I am ‘all that and a bag of chips’ one of my new cherry red Steve Madden stilettos falls in the toilet and I have to fish it out with a body part not covered with a glove.

NOTE: The phrase ‘all that and a bag of chips’ is a silly jumble of words meaning that I feel like I look pretty darn good in my cherry red Steve Madden stilettos, and I can eat a bag of chips and not gain weight.

And that’s how it went last Sunday while I was teaching my Sunday school class. They’re called Sunbeams. They’re four-years-old. They love me, mostly because I always bring snacks and I own a lot of puppets. I love them back, mostly because they remind me that there is still hope in the world.

I am a rocking four-year-old Sunday school teacher. I thought.

Last Sunday, in the spirit of Merry and Christmas, I brought my Fisher Price nativity set to class. We spent time setting up the manger, Mary and Joseph, the ever popular baby Jesus, the animals, the little wishing well, and the cat. The cat is so popular that it tends to get tucked away in little pockets and stolen, but that’s an object lesson for another time.

We had a blast, setting, arranging, and pretending. Standing over the neatly displayed crèche scene, I said something profound and wise and teacherly to my Sunbeams.

Something like, “And that children is why we should be kind and loving and . . .”

Not checking behind me, I went to sit down in my teeny, tiny four-year-old chair. It wasn’t there. I hit the ground butt first, collapsing onto my back, staring up at the ceiling.

And finishing my sentence, I said, “. . . we should try to be more like Jesus.”

I glanced into the face of a cherubic little boy. He smiled at me and said, “I moved your chair, Sissa [Sister] Zern.”

“Yes. I see that.”

I stayed where I’d landed on the floor for a few more minutes, splayed out like the Wicked Witch after that house had fallen on her and spent a few moments eating humble pie with a side serving of awesome sauce.

Linda (Yum-Yum) Zern

The First Epistle of ZippityZern to Cindy

1. Unto Cindy Lou I do write the happenings of our tribe in the year two thousand and fourteen and do speak somewhat of that which tickeleth the bone that is funny. And do say unto thee through Cindy Lou, trust not the guy whose heart is three sizes too small. He stealeth thy stuff.

2. Neither give heed to that which everyone else doth do, for they followeth strange fads and turneth aside unto vain janglings. 

3. But yet remain strong in that which giveth joy and bringeth giggles.

4. Be like unto Kipling (age 6) which dideth go with his mother and siblings to the doctor and did worrieth that he would be given a shot. The stress of which did causeth him to have gas and toot much. When the nurse did entereth the room she declared, “Shew. Who dideth fart?”

5. And Kip did speak forth, saying, “Me. I’m the nervous kid in the room.”

6. And he did speaketh the truth and did holdeth nothing back, being honest in his dealings with his fellow man. And thus we see that to speak the truth is often most funny and beloved of all.

7. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.

8. And the young and impressionable in our tribe did likewise speak often of the world and its doings, finding delight and wonder in the wagging of the world and who doth way it.

9. Or as it was said by Zoe (age 10) when in science club she did observeth salt dancing under the influence of percussion and music to form most intricate and dazzling of patterns, “I’m speechless.” 

10. Also be like unto Emma (age 9) who beginneth all and every sentence with a much used phrase, it being, “Did you know . . .” And she doth have the knowing of many things, yea, almost all things.

11. Then there is the example of one Conner (age 8); who doth struggle much in his reading but doth set for all a fine brightness of hope when he saith, “It is my destiny to learn to read.” 

12. And also there being one Sadie (age 6) who delighteth in the sun, and moon, and stars; who bringeth gifts of rocks to me that sparkleth with much quartz, wanting much to study the glitter she doth find in the earth.

13. And Zachary and Reagan hath learned much in their going to pre-school, mostly that Indians did creepeth and did eateth much of turkey with those known as Pilgrims. And Reagan did complaineth, “I tired of turkey songs.”

14. This is a true saying, that Griffin, whom they still calleth Gummy, and Hero, who loveth horses much, and Scout, known for her much climbing, did all grow in stature and wisdom and their parents did yet looketh forth to that day without diapers.

15. And in a day that is not yet, but soon, there would yet come another infant to our tribe and her name would be known on the records of our church: Leidy Hazel Lorance both for her great-grandfather and her great-grandmother and we did look forward to the day of her coming.

16. These things I write unto thee to show that our tribe doth still prosper and grow; that the song we sing hath both the secret of our love and the secret of our happiness contained therein, in that we do believe our purpose and mission is to inviteth others to our family and to ‘help [them] and others on their way.’ And this is that which doth make our lives a marvelous work and a wonder to us. And we do rejoice and wish all a most pleasant journey and much blessed Christmas.

Veneer

Thirty-plus years ago, my high school sweetheart and I got married. We were young and dumb. So young and so dumb that the memory of this life altering decision has the power to cause my husband to have semi-faux panic attacks—usually in the shower. 

Afterwards, he stands in the bedroom wrapped in a damp towel and yells, “What were we thinking?”

“Not much!” I respond.

It might be easy to think that life has been a smooth sail on an endless pond of Jell-O for a couple of high school sweethearts like the two of us. 

Not so much.

Luckily, in the beginning we didn’t own luggage, and it was too embarrassing to get ticked off and leave while dragging plastic garbage bags. It looked pretty stupid to have to haul your junk out of the house in black plastic garbage bags. Sometimes poverty and a lack of luggage are blessings in disguise.

Bottom line, my high school sweetheart can still make me want to stuff black plastic garbage bags full of my shoes and makeup and drive to the state line.

And just recently he made me revert all the way back to a primitive state I like to call: Barbarella Viking Bride.

I was so angry . . . 

About what? Not important. Never is. 

I was so angry that I walked into my kitchen, felt my fingers curl around the satisfying curve of a fresh-from-the-hen-house egg, and chucked it as hard as I could into the sink. It was an egg bomb. I found shards of that egg in invisible nooks and crannies for three days—not to mention my eyebrows. 

Mostly, I found egg dripping down my face. I, literally, had egg on my face. But instead of being embarrassed or ashamed or self-conscious, I reached up and with two fingers drew parallel lines down both my cheeks and across my forehead in the yellow yolk of rage. In the split second it takes to heave an egg, I had become one with my Viking ancestor’s state of primal berserk, wearing the war paint of sticky gick. 

Staring at my fearsome visage, I thought about getting more eggs and egging the truck, burning down the mailbox, or ransacking an abbey. 

Then I realized that I’d just have to clean all that mess up, so I washed my face, picked egg shell out of my hair, and pulled the veneer of civilization back over my head like a waterproof poncho.

Still mad, I did the worst civilized thing I could think of: I went to the store and bought orange juice with LOTS of pulp in it. My husband hates pulpy orange juice.

He swilled it down just to spite me.

He can be a bit of a Viking berserker himself.

That’s the problem with civilization and civilized behavior; it can be a mighty thin veneer at times—as thin as an eggshell. 

Linda (Shield Maiden) Zern 

Absolutely Fuzzy

**Bobwhite was a college guy who sat next to me in my creative writing class. The only thing that made Bobwhite the College Guy angry was people who believed in absolutes. He made this declaration with absolute certainty. It was a declaration that made me mildly uncomfortable because I, of course, only believe in “absolutes.” I absolutely believe that certain teenagers who tell you that they are “ready and able” to drive the family van, will, in fact, run that van off the road at fifty-miles per hour through a barbed wire cow fence—at the first available opportunity causing $4,123.13 in damages and an ulcer epidemic among the adults in the family. I absolutely believe that two-year olds, left on the back porch by themselves, when told not to eat the dog food, will eat the dog food after soaking it in the dog’s water. I absolutely believe that college students, who do not pay taxes, car insurance, or their own meal allowances, are excited about the re-distribution of wealth—mostly other people’s. Bobwhite believed that human beings didn’t even know why they did what they did, but after they did it, they try to figure out why they’ve done what they did, so they’ll know stuff about why they do what they did for future doings. I don’t pretend to understand that sentence. He also believed that human beings are motivated to do what they do by chemicals, genetics, and reality television. He also believed (with no apparent historical precedent) that the future looked brighter than the past, because of all the information available on-line, of course. If we can just stuff enough information into people, they will not want to rip-off the old folks pension plans. I remain skeptical—also menopausal. I believe that thieves with a lot of education are just educated thieves or politicians. Bobwhite’s basic premise was that human beings without education or Google Earth have no ability to exhibit will power or self-control above that of the average poodle. Wanting to put his theory to the test, I asked him, “Do you mean to tell me that if I get the urge to smash your head in with a brick, it won’t be my fault, but a combination of menopausal hormones, urban blight, and Irish angst.” Bobwhite said, “Exactly.” When I get into these deep philosophical discussions at school the other students sit in a semi-circle starring at me to see if I will stroke out. Turning to the semi-circle of my fellow students, I said, “Girls, go get me a brick. I want to test out Bobwhite’s theory.” They laughed. I was serious. Oh, those college kids are so adorable, but they’ve got a lot to learn. It’s true that the two-year old will eat the dog food, but she won’t eat it forever. It’s also true that teenagers shouldn’t be allowed to drive until they’ve joined the Army or the Peace Corp. And college kids eventually become taxpayers and want to know, “Who the heck is this FICA guy?” The truest absolute of all is that the fuzzy thinking of the young and freshly educated will sharpen right up as soon as someone they are closely related to decides it’s a hilarious idea to drive around town with a fake bomb in the trunk of the family car. Linda (Absolutely Me) Zern ** Name has been changed because I am not an absolute dweeb.

So Thankful For Readers and Their Comments

Linda Zern's book, Mooncalf, was a very enjoyable read. I take pleasure in historical fiction. Not growing up in Florida, I was able to learn a bit more about this magnificent state that we live in and it's southern roots in a much more vivid way than from a text book. Her descriptions were lively.  The many ways that just the Orange groves and it's treasures and findings are brought to life from a child's eyes are enchanting and even startling at times.
     Also, each character has very distinct traits that help them be brought to life. I enjoyed figuring out the characters instead of being 'told' how they were. As a mother, I especially felt for Leah's mom and thought about how abandoned she must have felt.
    This is a special story because it's two in one, bonus!! It puts a new thought process into reading, challenging us just enough. Being told from two completely different life styles between children's innocent eyes is refreshing. Adults make things that should be so simple, like true friendship, more difficult than they should be because they think 'they know best.' How wrong we can be.

~Amber Sorrough~

Smell That Country

We are country folk. Walking to the mailbox takes longer than a football halftime. Mowing the “lawn” is a commitment. Assorted animals have raucous sex in plain view and without shame. And NOTHING smells like it was whipped up in a Johnson and Johnson laboratory to smell like pumpkin spice and applesauce.

As country folk, we recognize that the “real” world stinks. Literally. 

FACT: There is no deodorant big enough for Mother Nature.

“What is that stench?” I said to absolutely no one, while sucking air through my teeth because the hairs in my nose were sizzling. 

Sunlight jittered. A light, calm breeze heavy with hell’s foul breath wafted. 

I checked the horses in the barn. They were happily crunching, munching, and tooting their way through life. Pretty standard stink there. Not the source of the truly foul odor that floated across my yard in a toxic cloud. 

The smell wasn’t coming from Mr. Abe’s, our Moroccan neighbor. The festival of blood . . . er . . . um . . . the festival of Eid was over and everyone had cut their chunks of bloody goat meat out of the trees and dragged them home. 

FACT: Yes! You read that correctly. My neighbor slaughters dozens of animals twice a year and then hangs them in the trees while everyone from their mosque enjoys a picnic. It’s a cultural treat for the eyes, but there’s less smell than you might think.

Another gust of wind gagged me.

Not Mr. Abe’s then. The stink was coming from the other neighbor’s house, Mr. Medina: retired former pizza restaurant owner and bare-chested weekend hobby farmer.

A Nubian ram, the size of a small pony, lifted his nose to the sky, curled his lip, dropped his head to his side, curled in to himself, and peed on his own face. The smell exploded across two acres of pasture like the stench of an open landfill. 

It was the filthy musk of a full-grown boy goat in raging, snorting . . . rut . . . er . . . lust . . . um . . . love . . . WITH A DONKEY.

I pinched my nose as I watched the impossible sight of the enormous boy goat leaping after Mr. Medina’s donkey. The donkey, eyes whirling around in his head like pinwheels, ran for his sexual purity. The donkey brayed. The goat pranced. Goat smell continued to choke me.

Then, if that wasn’t countrified enough, I gaped as Mr. Medina popped out of his barn door like a cork out of a bottle—broom in hand. He started to chase the goat, chasing the donkey. The trio circled the pasture. I rubbed my eyes and coughed.

FACT: Mother Nature is nuts.

I thought about helping my neighbor as a good Christian woman should. I didn’t. I was too afraid the goat might start chasing me. I couldn’t risk it. I don’t run that fast.

FACT: Mother Nature plays for keeps.

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is except to say, “Run hard. Run fast.”

Linda (Sniffles) Zern

BOOK PROOF

PROOF OF BOOK:  JUST IN TIME TO LAUGH FOR CHRISTMAS!

When selfies go wrong!  It's Mavis the Wild Gypsy Goat of Kissimmee Park Road. 

Cool With a K

My husband is a world traveler. He’s navigated: foreign visas, foreign airports, every continent but one, diverse climates, cuisine, airports, languages, and sewer systems. He’s cool—except when he isn’t.

Occasionally, I travel with the world traveler to keep him company and keep him out of airport jail. True story.

Coming home from South Korea, I was able to talk him down off a ledge when we landed in the Detroit International Airport only to have to stand in a line that was one hundred and fifty-seven deep, to wait for TWO surly guys to stare at our passports and grunt. Being in Detroit was like being in a foreign country with bad plumbing.

My husband, the world traveler, stood in the middle of the endless line of weary, slightly smelly, fellow world travelers and said, “This is %&^*ed up.” Really loud. I remember because my eyebrows hit my hairline with a thud. My husband does not curse—ever—even for a good joke.

On a recent trip to Washington, DC for our thirty-plus year anniversary, my husband, the world traveler, navigated security, dashed through check points, yanked out ID like a guy with a cable show on the travel channel and dragged me along like a slightly larger version of a cat in a cat carrier. We were savvy travelers.

We were savvy travelers, right up to the point when he whipped out our airline tickets from his front shirt pocket and a binky tumbled out.

I looked down at the lonely pacifier on the nasty airport terminal floor and said, “Babe, is that your binky?”

We looked down and stared.

The binky looked lonely and familiar all at the same time. 

The ultra cool world traveler said, “Yeah.” He looked around. “Doesn’t look like it belongs to anyone else.” 

We were surrounded by ultra cool, world traveler types; they were checking their email and Facebook updates. A hamster could have fallen out of his pocket and no one would have noticed.

“It’s Gummy’s,” he said.

“Do you think that kid’s ever going to be called by his given name?” I vaguely remembered liking our youngest grandson’s real name. I just couldn’t remember what it was.

“Nope. He’s the baby.” He picked up the binky and tucked it back in his pocket. We traveled on.

One of the important lessons I’ve learned over the past three decades is that just about the time that you think you’ve reached a state of super cool, world traveler status you lose your binky right there in front of everybody. It’s like writing a story about achieving the state of “cool” and realizing you’ve spelled cool with a ‘K.’

Linda (Suck on This) Zern

BANTER

I was sixteen. He was seventeen and had his hat in his hands—literally. It was a welding hat from shop class. For those of a younger generation, shop class was a high school class dedicated to the idea that not everyone had to be a lawyer to be happy, healthy, and wise.

The boy with his hat in his hands asked me to the homecoming dance. I went. We’ve been together ever since, making us high school sweethearts. Or as I like to tell the youth in my church, “I waited for him and he waited for me, and it doesn’t get more romantic than that.”

For thirty-six married years, plus three dating years, equaling thirty-nine total years, it’s been smooth sailing, low stress, and baby bunnies in Easter baskets every step of the rainbow giggling way. 

Sure. Sure. 

What? 

It happens to be true that big, fat lies are all the rage right now.

A couple of consequences of being together for such an extended period of time are the evolution of flexible attitudes, the development of various coping strategies, and the use of guns over knives when fist fighting.

For example, in the beginning, we argued.

Now, we banter.

Banter is arguing with the sharp edges knocked off.

Recently, we bantered our way through the new self-checkout register at our local Walmart. It was trial by barcode scanner.

“Okay, I’ll scan and you bag.” I held up a giant bag of Halloween candy corn.

“Scan, Baby, scan,” Sherwood chanted.

I swiped the bag of candy and Sherwood stuffed the bag into a bag and straight into our buggy.

The machine immediately suspected shoplifting and seized up.

“I think you’ve got to let it sit in the ‘bagging area’ so that it knows you’re not stuffing candy corn in your pants.”

“Why would I stuff candy corn in my pants? I hate candy corn.”

“The computer doesn’t know that.” I swiped a giant bag of Kit Kat candy bars across the scanner.

He stuffed the Kit Kats in a plastic bag. The machine seized up and declared, “Unauthorized item in bagging area.”

“I haven’t put anything, unauthorized or not, in the bagging area.”

“Did you think about putting something unauthorized in the bagging area?”

“Are you kidding? How would the machine know what I’m thinking?”

I looked up. 

“Drones?” An assorted flock of small, pooping birds swept by, over my head—possibly drones—hard to tell.

“Wait for assistance!” The machine commanded. We waited.

A cashier, approximately the same age as my socks, assisted us. Tap, tap, tap, swipe, and tap. “Okay,” she said.

I tried to scan a head of lettuce. Nothing happened.

The machine suspected shoplifting and seized up.

“Here,” I said. “Put this head of lettuce in your pants.”

Once upon a time, my cavalier jokester attitude, the fact that the line of grumpy shoppers behind us was piling up fifty deep, and our obvious lack of check-out acumen or savvy would have sent my husband into orbit, and I would have trailed behind him like a kite string. But now? Now we understand that ninety-eight percent of life is complete daffiness—so yuck it up, baby, and bring on the banter.

While we waited for teenage assistance to arrive and to make us feel super stupid, my husband pretended to stuff the head of lettuce into his pants. I snorted through my nose. Then he took two lemons and . . . well, never mind what he did with the lemons.

I’ve known him for thirty-nine years, and there’s no one I would rather banter with—no one.

Linda (Lemonade) Zern

WELL HEELED

From my walk-in closet I pulled a pair of my highest, sharpest stilettos and strapped them on.

“Why are you putting on high heels?” asked Sherwood, my husband of thirty- plus years.

“Because we’re going into battle. I pulled a suit jacket over my yellow knit top.

“It’s pretty hot for a jacket. Don’t you think?”

“Sherwood, dear man, nothing says, ‘I want my money back ‘ like sharp, pointy shoes and a Liz Claiborne suit jacket.”

I checked my makeup and threw a mock pink crocodile hobo bag over my bony shoulder.

“Let’s go.”

This was war. And I was not going to lose.

We crammed the defective four hundred and sixty dollar (two year extended warranty included) Hewlet Packard Officejet Pro scanner, printer, fax, and copier machine into the truck. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I had purchased the new copy machine with cold, hard, American credit to replace the old copy machine that had been blown to toast by lightning—while I happened to be standing next to it.

The replacement Hewlet Packard Officejet Pro scanner, printer, fax, and copier fresh out of the box—did not work. It didn’t pretend to work. So, back it had to go because I make a lot of copies of stuff—my writing, my sketches, coloring pages for grandchildren, my last will and testament. 

“Give me the keys. I’ll drive.” I snapped my fingers.

“Slow down, General Patton. I’m driving,” Sherwood said, holding the keys over my head. He didn’t have to hold them very high. Sherwood drove. I fumed and prepared my opening salvo.

The girl snapping her gum, standing underneath the Customer Service sign, did not have a chance.

“Hi, my name is Linda Zern,” I said, “and I’m not a happy customer.”

The gum snapper snapped to attention, eyes widening. I did not slow down. 

“Yesterday, I bought a four hundred and sixty dollar copy machine for my business, and it does not work, not even a little bit. Now I know that this unfortunate turn of events is not your fault, or my fault, or the fault of some poor slave chained to a factory wall in China, cranking out copier machines by the billions. The machine does not work. I find this situation beyond frustrating, and I want no silliness from this fine establishment. Do you understand? Now, what do you plan to do for me?”

Her hand trembled as she pointed toward the back of the store. 

“Just leave the bad one and go get a new one,” she said.

I spun on my pointy heels.

When I found a young man lurking in the copier aisle, I said, “Young man, this it the situation: I purchased a moderately expensive copy machine, and it is defective. Now I know that this is not your fault, or my fault, or the fault of some poor slave chained to a factory wall in China, however I still want one that works. I am not happy. Furthermore, I can’t seem to find another copier machine to replace the piece of junk I purchased in good faith from this store only yesterday. What can you do for me?”

His hand trembled as he pushed a very large ladder to a top shelf where a stack of very heavy HP Officejet Pros waited.

I noticed Sherwood’s frown. 

“You think I’m being too hard on the troops.” It was not a question.

“I think you’re being testy.”

With raised eyebrows I asked the young man, now bent double under my replacement copier, “My husband thinks that I’m being testy. What do you think?”

His hand trembling increased as he steadied the huge box. “I think that you are a person who wants what she paid for.”

“Excellent answer, young man, proceed.” He lumbered towards customer service.

“Do you think that he’s afraid of me?” I asked my husband.

“I’m afraid of you.”

“Good.”

I marched to customer service, my stilettos tapping a determined rhythm. Without a word, the gum snapper made the switch and handed me a receipt.

“Young lady, I want to thank you for not making me have to mud wrestle you over this exchange.”

She cracked a lip glossed smile.

“And if I were you I would say your prayers that this machine is not also defective.”

She crossed herself.

We left. The copier is perfect.

I give all the credit to my shoes. Nothing says, ‘Don’t mess with me or my feet’ like a pair of sharp, pointy shoes. I know the truth. Any woman who is prepared to endure the pain, discomfort, and unnatural spinal position that high heels require will not hesitate to fling herself over a customer service desk and throttle the teenager running the cash register. It’s like having two rottweilers on your feet. I love my high heels—also they make me taller.

So, tip of the week, if you want action don’t wear flip-flops.

Linda (I have hammer toes older than you!) Zern