Bug Zapper Blues

When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements.

It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space.

One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement.

“Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.”

Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes.

“Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.”

He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away.

We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move.

At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.”

Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?”

“Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.”

He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day.

This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might.

Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there?

Thank you for your support,

Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern 

In The Beginning, There Was Literature

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Walking across my college campus after one of my Medieval Literature classes, I overheard the following conversation from my fellow students:

“I don’t need to hear this Bible shit,” the young man said.

“Yeah. You’re right. I don’t need this religion bull shit,” his girlfriend agreed.

“How was I supposed to know that unicorns were considered a symbol for that Jesus guy?” he retorted. “Christ!”

I sighed.

First of all, it’s true. Unicorns, in the Middle Ages, were considered a symbol for the God of the Christian faith. They symbolized purity, uniqueness, and holiness.

Later, my Medieval Literature professor sadly informed me, “Linda, every semester, it gets harder and harder to find anyone who’s even heard of Genesis, let alone read it. Try teaching a class on Medieval Literature to people who have no working knowledge of their own heritage.”

And so, it goes.

Once upon a time, the King James’ version of the Bible was our national textbook. We taught children to read from it. We gave them an appreciation of story because of it. We catalogued human nature in it. We shared our heritage through it. And to our children we imparted a basic system of rules that allowed for a common culture.

Literature, writing, poetry, story, message, premise, metaphor, and simile: it’s all in there. The language of the King James’ version of the Bible is challenging and beautiful. The stories are compelling and dramatic. Close to Elizabethan English, it stretches our comprehension. It’s an AP course in words and language, and it’s free.

Reading the Bible doesn’t have to be about religion, if you don’t want it to be. That’s what I wish I would have said to the young man in the above conversation. And then I would have asked him, “Is it any wonder that the average reading level of the American public has fallen to, according to the United Stated Department of Health and Human Services, a seventh-grade level?”

Recently, while reading The New Testament, I came across a phrase that spoke volumes to me as a writer. To the Philippians, Paul said, “I joy.” What a beautiful way to express a fundamental human state of being: happiness. He is happy. Clear. Concise. Elegant. I’ve never read it expressed like that anywhere else, and I’ve read a lot.

In my opinion, I am a better writer for having studied the language and story of the Bible, and I can appreciate the power of symbols—like unicorns.

Free the speech. Read. Everything. Always.

And I hope you will not be afraid to think deeply about, “Why the world wags and who wags it.” (From, The Once and Future King, by T. H. White, published the year I was born.)

Linda (I Joy) Zern

Double Bubble Trouble - Happy Anniversary

In honor of our upcoming wedding anniversary I would like to hie back to a simpler time; a time when my husband and I realized we were outnumbered by the children, and we were forced to institute the following rule: The first one in the marriage to break and run had to take the kids with them—all the crazy, gum chomping, kids. Good times.


When Sherwood and I were young we produced a lot of little kids, a lot of grubby, grimy little kids, who because of their love affair with dirt and grime required a ton of hosing off—also bathing. When these little kids took baths they sometimes chewed huge wads of bubble gum. I didn’t mind; it kept them quiet. (For a while they tried to bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with them into the tub, but I put the hoodoo on that right away.) 

In the early days and even though we had a lot of filthy children, we had only one bathroom. It had one bathtub. One fine evening, Sherwood decided to take a bath in our one and only bathtub, the very same tub our children had used earlier that evening. 

From the bathroom I heard the haunting boom of my husband’s voice.

“Linda, get in here.” His voice was thick with some emotion I found hard to identify. It was repugnance.

Naked and dripping, he stood leaning against the sink, his arms braced against the porcelain, bent slightly forward at the waist. He was not smiling or winking. 

“Look at this.” He pointed to his hairy damp backside bits. He added, “Is that what I think it is?”

Me, I’m a funny girl, I asked, “Is this a test?” I did not look.

“No, I mean it. Look at my butt.”

“I’m not looking at your butt. You can’t make me.”

He pointed harder at his backside, completely devoid of any spirit of good-natured high jinx. There was more back and forth, denial and insistence and such, but I’ll spare you. I finally realized that this might be a serious situation causing real distress for my husband because he’d been standing there leaning against the sink, naked and pointing at himself for, well, longer than was good for either one of us. 

I bent down and I did look.

Sure enough, there it was, a wad of Double Bubble chewing gum the size of a hamster’s head nestled in . . . ummm. . . well, just nestled.

I said, “Oops.”

He said, “Get it off.”

I asked, “How?”

It was a good question. I believe I missed the chapter in Home Economics dealing with “butt hair gum removal.”

I’d heard a rumor once—something club soda—stains or something, but I didn’t think club soda was going to apply in this case. I knew you could use ice to freeze gum and then chip it off of stuff, but chipping seemed the wrong sort of action to take. Pulling was right out. Shaving/cutting seemed promising, but it was going to be close work.

I can remember hoping that my hand was going to be steady enough, what with the laughing and all.

The real problem is that there just isn’t any kind of hotline for this. I blame the government.

Let me just report that the operation was a success, and I employed a combination of techniques.

To the children and now grandchildren I would like to say, “Let this be a lesson to you. Never chew gum in the bathtub. Chewing gum in the bathtub can make your father have to have his posterior shaved. There are reasons for family rules. Rules are our friends, and YaYa doesn’t make this stuff up. She has experience. She’s lived.”

Linda (Steady Now) Zern 

The Daily Grind

Because I am so engrossing and we live in an era that celebrates the glory of accomplishing absolutely nothing, I’d like to share with my friends and family a day in my fascinating, engrossing life.

3:00am – I am awakened from a troubled sleep by a circus troop of raccoons assaulting the family trashcans.

3:13am – Motion sensor light comes on as the raccoons form “HUMAN” pyramid. That’s right; I said HUMAN. I imagine the raccoon heap now measures 4’ 11” inches in height and comes up to my chin.

3:20am – I race outside in my fluffy bathrobe with a broom to confront raccoon troop. Trip over garbage slung thirty feet in all directions. Realize raccoons have thrown invisibility cloak over themselves.

3:27am – Shake broom at nothing. Watch hair on arms stand up when the coyotes start howling.

3:28am – Go back to bed. Attempt to sleep.

5:00am – QUIT trying to attempt to sleep.

6:00am – Say a simple prayer of thanks that every man-jack of us have lived to see another day. (Note: We will be the first to admit that our family may occasionally merit Biblical destruction.)

6:09am – Check out cable news. Feel vindicated that every prediction I’ve ever made is coming true. Turn up the volume when it’s reported that a woman in North Carolina was attacked in her sleep IN HER BED by a surly—also rabid—raccoon. 

6:12am – Shuffle to the bathroom and because I’ve caught my great grandmother’s arthritis, I daydream about my granddaughters having to push me to the mailbox in a wheelchair every day. They will chatter happily as they push. Say a prayer of gratitude for such wonderful granddaughters.

6:31am – Limbs and appendages begin to bend. Postpone nursing home reservation.

7:27am – Feed good animals (not garbage eating night marauders) stuff.

9:00am – Go to yoga and during meditation time, when I’m supposed to be emptying my mind of all stressful thoughts, I try to calculate the force necessary to kill a raccoon with a rock.

10:07am – Declare yoga a bust. Decide to try combat kick boxing next time.

Noon – Eat macaroni or rice or beans. I’m not kidding.

12:00pm to When-I-run-out-of-steam-or-the-coyotes-howl: I scribble and scribble words on virtual paper. Words that no one may ever read, but I still feel compelled to write, in spite of the fact that it makes me look like an agoraphobic shut-in.

Bedtime – When the sun sets and the chickens go to sleep, because I’m saving precious energy and resources for future generations—also I can work in bed while wearing pajamas. Don’t be jealous.

Tomorrow – Rinse and Repeat

Linda (Night Stalker and Fascinating Person) Zern

  

POOP SHOES AND QUARANTINE

On the flight from L.A. to Australia they hand you a skinny yellow card and tell you to fill it out, declaring stuff. Do you have any fruit, nuts, porn, or chicken poop on your shoes? And you’d better, by golly, fess up or they fine you—big hefty bucks.

Honesty is the cheapest policy.

So we declared. No fruit. No nuts. No porn. But things got hinky with the chicken poop question. Well, actually it was more a question of possible exposure to chicken poop.

The question that tripped us up?

Have you within the last thirty days been exposed to animals that poop or produce assorted dingle berries in a rural setting?  (I’m paraphrasing.)

The answer was a resounding, “You bet. Why just this morning or yesterday morning or tomorrow morning before the world turned on its axis, we were hip deep in animals that poop.” We checked the box for yes.

In Australia, railing through the immigration and customs line, holding our skinny yellow card at the ready we prepared to declare our familiarity with organic farm animal by-product.

A pre-screener, a lovely woman of possible Asian descent, took our skinny yellow card, made note of our honesty on question number ten or maybe it was twelve and declared us quarantined, but not before looking at our shoes with squinty eyes.

Panicked, my husband, scrambled to explain our damning poop answer, “We have horses. They poop. We had to feed them before we left Florida, thus the reason for their pooping—all the feeding and eating. The horses not us.” Sweat broke out on his forehead.

I stroked his arm, calming him, and said, “I think she just wants to make sure we haven’t brought our muck-out boots or packed bags of manure in our luggage. That’s all.”

The pre-screener squinted harder at our shoes, made a check on our card, and then pointed us to the quarantine area.

An official of the Australian immigration and customs department squinted some more at our shoes, quizzed us on our manure exposure, possibly sniffed us, laughed a bit when we declared our bodies poop free, stamped our card, and then waved us through the door into the great down under.

On the trip from Sidney to Melbourne, the third plane ride of our twenty-seven hour global trip, I got a bit punch drunk and started to laugh. Snorting through my nose, I leaned over and confessed, “Babe, I hate to admit this, but I think I might have had some chicken sh*t on my shoes, but I was afraid to say anything.”

Horrified, he clamped his hand over my mouth. I licked the palm of his hand. He let me go.

“Kidding! I’m just kidding. But wouldn’t that be crazy to be locked up abroad for contraband chicken poo shoes?” I looked deep in his eyes. “Hey, it may not be a sixty million dollar Air Force One trip on the taxpayer’s dime, but it’s already been quite an adventure.”

He winked. I smiled. And then I double-checked the bottom of my shoes just to be sure I wasn’t breaking quarantine or smuggling dingle berries.

Linda (All Clear) Zern

Loving Goats

In the weak sunshine of a Florida winter, it is customary for some Floridians to sit on their septic tanks, their faces tipped up to the sky, their sinuses exposed to the gentle medicinal comfort of the sun’s warmth, their hope as raw as their throats that God and nature will heal them of their Ebola-Rhino-Flu-Plague. 

Okay, sometimes I pull a lawn chair over to the septic tank and sit in the sun and hope that it will make me feel better when I’m sick. Sometimes, Phillip, my son-in-law, brings the grandkids over and sits on the septic tank with me. What can I say; it’s Saint Cloud. 

Once upon a time, we (Philip and I) sat in the sun on the septic tank. I was feeling as weak as two kittens in a sinking sack from Ebola-Rhino-Flu-Plague, while Conner and Zoe (the grand-kidlets) cavorted merrily under a Japanese Plum tree. 

Zoe sang, “Fruit-fruit-fruit, I want two fruits.” Conner pooped in his pants.

The world spun gently, right up to the point when Conner, poop in drawers, stumbled in the direction of a strange, horned, white goat that had mysteriously appeared in our yard, having journeyed from somewhere beyond next door.

“Phillip, grab that boy before Billy Goat Gruff knocks your kid down.”

The goat flipped his scraggly beard in the direction of my voice. Phillip ran and scooped Conner up, setting him next to me in my pool of medicinal sunshine on the septic tank. The goat, a smallish—no higher than my knee variety—with dirty blond hair and “come hither” yellow devil eyes, started a slow determined trot in our direction.

Phillip, never a lover of goats or farm creatures in general, said, “What does it want with us?” He sounded nervous—also squeamish. 

“Oh, he’s probably just seeing what’s what.” I tried to sound confident.

The goat kept trotting.

I closed my eyes in exhaustion brought on by the Ebola-Rhino-Flu-Plague. The odor of goat, BOY goat, engulfed me, and wow, did he smell close! When I opened my eyes, it was to the sight of this stinker of a goat trying to French kiss the sleeve of my shirt and the sound of obscene noises of goat love. I bolted out of my lawn chair.

I yelled, “Or he could be looking for a date.”

The goat made a lunge at my leg. I dodged.

“Grab the kids before it’s too late—this stinky goat is in full on goat whoopee love mode.”

Phillip scooped up Conner but Zoe, misunderstanding what I had said, began running wildly around waving and yelling, “Go away stinger goat. Go away.”

Confused, but hopeful, the goat surveyed the scene and then lunged at the closest leg—Phillip’s leg.

Zoe waved and yelled, “Leave my daddy’s leg alone.”

“It’s having its’ way with your leg,” I screamed, as I ripped the garden house from the side of the house.

“Run!” I ordered.

Expecting a torrent of water, I turned the spigot on full blast, but lying advertising and crap marketing had given me a false sense of security in my new never-kink hose. A weak drip of water taunted me, and I cringed to see more crimps and kinks than hose.

Phillip shrieked.

Zoe shrieked. “Bad Stinger Goat!!”

I whipped the hose from side to side to un-kink the kinks and to defend whatever honor Phillip had left in his right leg. The goat continued to lust.

Finally, the hose kinks came free and I fire-hosed that nasty, stinker of a goat. The goat loved it. The distraction gave Phillip enough of a head start that he, Conner, and Zoe made it to the screened porch. I brought up the rear, not two steps ahead of the now wet and super rank horn-dog of a goat.

What I saw in my son-in-law’s eyes still brings a shudder to my soul. What he said next, I cannot forget.

“I showed fear,” he said. “I showed fear.” He hung his head. 

Conner tried to pet the goat through the porch screen. I tipped over a lawn table and shoved it against the screen door.

“You smell like a bad stinger goat,” I said, avoiding Phillip’s eyes. “I hope you have a change of clothes.” 

Before he finished slinking off to wash himself, I said, “We will never speak of this.” His chin collapsed onto his chest. He continued slinking. Somewhere in the yard a goat bawled his loneliness. 

This is the story that I started my website with several years ago. To catch up on all my tales of hose kinks, goat attacks, and family shame check out www.zippityzerns.com