It's Written All Over You!

I am a mature college student (i.e. a grownup), and I loved my anthropology class. Anthropology is a class where the half-baked theories hit the proverbial road. My anthropology teacher asked the class who thought that falling in love was a choice. Two hands went up.  Mine and the teacher’s. Everyone else (i.e. the young and delusional) thought love was a chemical reaction brought on by twerking. I think they should all wear T-shirts that read:  Not responsible for my chemicals! I could fall in love with anyone, anytime, anywhere.

At the end of the semester my teacher pulled my final exam paper out of my cramped, clenched, nerveless fingers and said, “You’ve got success written all over you.”

I’m going to have that printed on a T-shirt. I love the idea that I have things written all over me, the same way I love college. In college nobody complains when you use hefty pretentious words and think deep thoughts—out loud and in front of people.

Then I go home and the guy with whom I have mixed DNA in the blender of love says, “You gonna fire up that stove any time soon?”

 And I say, “I did.  Last week. You remember?”

So, I’m going to get another T-shirt that says, “I’m too short to cook.”

Because I am too short to cook, and my face is way too close to the fire, and I get sparks and grease in my eyes, not to mention all the scary murderous knives sitting around the kitchen waiting to stab people to death.

Or I’ll wear a T-shirt that says, “Kiss the Short Chick. Order Takeout.”

I just wish I had success written all over me, all of the time.

Unfortunately, sometimes I have “Help me! I'm melting!” written all over me; usually in the middle of the night when I’m sneaking around the house attempting to turn the thermostat down to a temperature approximating permafrost to combat the effects of hot flashes that are hotter than a pot of boiling lobsters.

I need a T-shirt that reads, “Caution:  I’m hot. Literally.”

I once went to church and had someone tell me, “Linda, we’ve just chosen you to be the person most likely to be burned at the stake.” I would rather not discuss the individuals who thought I had this sentiment written all over me. I’ll just call them the grand inquisitors in pointy hats crowd.

In this case, I should wear a T-shirt that says, “Joan of Arc is my Home Girl.”

Once, in a Tae Kwon Do class, and about the time I was feeling swift, strong, and capable, my body on its way to becoming a honed instrument of confident death dealing against the knife toters out there—also mean people—the lady behind me tapped me on the shoulder.

Randomly, I executed a powerful roundhouse kick through the danger fraught air next to her face. Kick. Snap. Retract. Rub surreptitiously at the thigh cramp.
 
She narrowed her eyes at what she might have thought of as my pointless leg flailing and said, “I’m not sure if you know this or not but you have a dryer sheet stuck to the back of your uniform.”

She plucked a dryer sheet from the back of my martial arts uniform and handed it to me.  I tucked it into my lovely purple belt and practiced more powerful leg flailing at imaginary mean people.

That day I had, “Hey, Dork, you have a dryer sheet stuck to your shoulder!” written all over me. I vetoed that T-shirt.

People in my Zumba class have told me that I should get the “Having the most fun!” award, and that’s a T-shirt I could get behind. Or maybe it could say, “Getting my money’s worth.”

When they say bump, I bump. When they say grind, I grind, and sometimes I throw in a poorly executed martial arts kick for old times sake and to see if my hip socket still rotates that far.

Here’s hoping that whatever’s written all over you is inspiring, noble, grand, and true—most of the time.

Linda (Write On!) Zern

OMEN

One of my favorite movie lines of all time was from an old movie where a bunch of ancient Greeks stood around waiting for another ancient Greek guy to cut open a live chicken and “read” its entrails. Entrails are guts, in case you’re wondering.

Are you following this?

They [those ancient Greek types] used to take a live chicken and then CUT IT OPEN. Then they’d shake the stuff that was on the inside of the chicken out of the chicken onto the kitchen table and look for messages while other ancient Greek types stood around waiting for the six o’clock news.

Probably as accurate as cable news, I’m thinking.

In the movie, the entrails reader saw nothing but ominous, disastrous news in the pile of chicken innards—all this is also known as a bad, bad omen.

The king of the Greeks after listening to the chicken gut reader give them the BAD omen news looked him in the eye, and said, “We reject your omen.”

I love that.

That’s brass.

That’s guts. That’s . . . hard on the chickens.

This fictional movie scene sums up what I believe is wrong with bad religious substitutes—folks can take them or leave them.  It’s the fatal flaw when worshipping at the altar of The Great Church of Science and Statistics or the High Church of Me, Myself, and I.

It’s easy to reject the omens.

The latest scientific research suggest that you should exercise more and less; eat meat or never; put the baby to sleep on its back, front, side, head; power nap; never power nap; cold therapy but not hot compresses, stand up sit down . . . fight, fight, fight.

Honestly, I reject the scientific omens.

Lightning strikes! Now, lightning strikes I believe in.

I once saw lightning hit the ground next to us while we were driving in the car. The lightning strike was invisible, but there was an impressive explosion of dirt, a smell of burning ozone, and a molar rattling crack of thunder. It was like a sign from God—also an omen.

“Wow, did you see that?” I said.

“What?” My husband mumbled.

“The invisible lightning that almost blew us up. It was six feet away.”

“Are you asking me if I saw invisible lightning?”

I recognized the sound of skeptical disbelief when I heard it, but I kept at it.

“Seriously, you didn’t hear that thunder? We were almost hit by lightning. What can that mean?”

His knuckles resembled kitchen cabinet knobs as he clutched the steering wheel and growled at surrounding traffic.

“It means that God’s aim must be off today, because he was shooting for that moron in the truck in front of us.”

“God’s aim is off?  This is not a comforting thought.”  I contemplated the idea that God was having a bad day at the gun range. “I reject your omen,” I said. “God was definitely sending a message . . . and he was sending it . . . to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s a sign. Like those guys who used to cut open chickens and get messages from their guts.”

“Okay, I’ll play along,” he sighed. “What’s the message?”

“We should get more chickens.”

And that’s how omens work at our house.

Linda (Gizzard Guts) Zern

























 















 

      

LOVE UNDER THE MERGE SIGN--A CLASSIC ZIPPITYZERN

A professor asked the college class, “Who decides if a baby is a boy or a girl?”



One bright young thing piped up and said, “Society.”



After my son related this fascinating tale of modern American education, I walked out to my chicken coop and watched as my thirteen roosters commenced to crow, spur, posture, fight, flap, peck, and gang rape their way through my flock of hens.



“Who told you, you were roosters,” I yelled. 



I sold twelve of the thirteen roosters to my next-door neighbor for six dollars and fifty cents a piece. He got a bargain.  My hens got some relief, and I learned a lesson about the nature of the species. Roosters do not lay eggs.



According to a recent scientific (so it must be good) study men think about sex 2,072 times every second of every minute of every day—girls, not so much, but this is, of course, because of rigid social conditioning and that poem about snips, snails, and puppy dog tails.



Personally, I’m glad my mother did not socialize me to be a boy so that I would have to think about sex constantly. I occasionally enjoy thinking about—oh I don’t know . . . breakfast or the Civil War.



When my husband was born, his mother, fooled by his resemblance to a rooster, socialized him to be a boy, which means that when he became a teenager he enjoyed riding naked on motorcycles through the Florida back woods but not to worry; he likes to point out he always wore tennis shoes so that he could shift and to protect his feet.



Now my husband (of thirty plus years) flies away to various locations around the globe on Sunday afternoon and gets home on Thursday nights, and I used to pick him up at the airport, my heart filled with that little frisson of happiness and excitement that accompanied the notion of my man coming home from the sea.

I was always glad to see him—for about five minutes, and then he would talk. I make him take a taxi now.



While coming home from the airport, trying to merge into a steady stream of traffic, and not get us crushed under a shuttle bus, I would often say stuff like, “I’m so glad you’re home, honey.”



A noise not unlike the sound of pizza being digested would greet this announcement.



“So how was your week? How was your flight? See anyone interesting in the airport like Caesar Milan?”



Silence. Silence. Quiet and then more and a bigger silence and then . . .



“Let’s get it on,” he would say.



“What?” My hands would clench convulsively on the steering wheel. “Should I pull off the road next to the palm tree or do you want to wait until we pass the merge sign, and please tell me this isn’t your idea of romance?”



The conversation often deteriorated from there.



What I want to know is who told my husband he was a rooster?



I’d like to thank them, because after thirty plus years, four kids, and ten grandchildren he’s still crazy about me. What can I do?  We’re just getting to the good part and I, for one, am glad that roosters do not lay eggs.



Linda (Henny Penny) Zern