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D is for Disclaimer

Once in a while, in the interest of pure, clean, sparkly honesty, I like to post a bit of a disclaimer, concerning my essay writing. NOTE: Don’t let the word essay make you itchy. Essay is a fancy word for bit of news or gossip or story that I might tell you “over the back fence,” as if we shared an actual fence and you were in the backyard while I was in the backyard and our kids were playing together under the clothesline.

Social media is the new back fence where it’s possible to “chew the fat” with one or a viral number of your closest most intimate friends. “Chewing the fat” is the act of having a chatty, amiable conversation with someone, preferably over the back fence.

So here’s the 411 (an expression meaning information or knowledge):

MARRIAGE DEAL: I’m married to Superman. Enough said.

FAMILY DEAL: Superman and I have four grown, married children, ranging in age from “no way I have a kid that old” to “no way my baby is that old.” We also have ten grandchildren ranging in age from “when did Zoe Baye start her own duct tape pillow business” to “quick catch Scout Harper she’s making a break for the door.”

LIFESTYLE SETUP: Superman and I live on six acres in a part of Florida known as rural. We have some horses, a couple of dogs, a bunch of bunnies, a coop full of chickens, and a pregnant goat. We spend our time driving to the feed store to purchase groceries for one and all.

SOURCES FOR ESSAY TOPICS: All of the above.

DAYTIME ACTIVITIES: Mowing, burning, chopping, edging, planting, tending, pruning, grooming, riding, shoveling, digging, mulching, weeding, picking, growing . . . oh, and I also write stuff: essays, E-books, manuscripts, chapter books, illustrated books and stories, short and otherwise.

NIGHT TIME ACTIVITIES: Listening to coyotes howl and doing homework.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW: I exaggerate for fun and laughs. Hyperbole is my middle name.

BLESSINGS: Folks who have read my writing and responded, so that I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself over the back fence while chewing the fat.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: Don’t pick my pocket, and I won’t pick yours. Period.

IN THE BEGINNING: My essays started as little stories that I told my mother, while sitting on her side porch, at the end of the day. I’d share this or that little thing that my kids had done or said, and I found that I enjoyed the telling more if I could make her laugh. Laughing at the mania and mess and mayhem put a fine bit of ending punctuation on another challenging stay-at-home, homeschooling kind of day.

Then Al Gore invented the Internet, and I took to the virtual super highway like a cheetah chasing warthogs—kind of. Mostly, I just stumbled around social media trying to remember clever passwords designed to thwart the efforts of hacker chicks in Beijing. Sigh.

I still like making people laugh, and cry, and think though, especially over the back fence while our kids and grandkids play under the clothesline.

Linda (L is for Laugh) Zern

CONCOCTIONS

To become a volunteer member of the Osceola mounted (up on horses) posse/patrol it was necessary to fill out a twenty-seven-page application declaring that I don’t do drugs or lie about doing drugs, that I don’t sell drugs or lie about selling drugs, or hang around people who do drug deals or lie about doing drug deals.

There were other questions on the application but for today’s discussion I’ll focus on drug usage: real, implied, or alleged.

After I handed in my twenty-seven-page application I was required to take a lie detector test. There were thirty plus questions. A solid chunk of the questions were about my possible drug usage.

It was a voice stress test. Apparently when people lie, their voice squeaks.

“Have you been in a location where illegal drugs were being used?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

“I had to walk across my college campus and . . . well . . . there was the unmistakable smell of . . . well . . . iguana, that’s what my grandson calls dope; isn’t that adorable?”

The examiner did not smile.

I continued my confession. “Seriously, when did smoking iguana in public become okay? Good grief.”

“Do you smoke iguana?” he began. “I mean marijuana. Have you used marijuana in the last twenty-seven months?”

“Nope. Listen! I’ve never ingested an entire carbonated soda. I think the bubbles are stupid.”

I passed my lie detector test.

Finally, I had to take a drug test to PROVE through chemical analysis of my internal body fluids that I did not, have not, would not SMOKE IGUANA or consume other weirdo drugs.

Sherwood, my husband, supportive as always, was concerned that I might fail my drug test.

“Geez, I don’t know. All those concoctions you take in the morning might mix together to form PCP or something. You might fail your drug test.”

“Concoctions? Vitamin B-12? Glucosamine Chondroitin? The stuff I take so my opposable thumbs will continue to oppose?”

“Is that what that’s for? Hey, give me some,” he said.

I passed my drug test.

And so I was invited to be a member of the volunteer posse, after an interview with three stern-faced, uniformed officers asking probing questions like, “What are some of the qualifications to be a member of the mounted posse?”

Confused for a moment, I said, “Have a horse?”

I think the correct answer might have been, “Not riding a horse while smoking iguana.”

Linda (Saddle Up) Zern