HORSE SENSE

Horses are pretty sure that they are going to be eaten by wolves—every single day. It’s what they are. It’s how they think. Pretending that horses are big dogs or cuddly kittens doesn’t change horses into big dogs or cuddly kittens. Horses are horses are horses.

I know that seems obvious but, these days, you’d be surprised. People have gotten a little muddled when it comes to animals of all species, including their own. Dogs are like easy babies and real babies are a punishment.

Horses, on the other hand, are twelve hundred pound prey animals that worry about wolves and Mickey Mouse balloons—until they learn to surrender to someone “bigger,” “stronger,” and/or more “dominant.”

It’s psychology: horse not human.

Mommy horses discipline rowdy babies by chasing them until they are whipped: sides heaving, sweat slicked, and submissive. When a horse is ready to “submit” to a more dominant horse it will drop its head, turn toward the “boss” and lick its lips. A horse that submits is saying, “You are in charge. I trust you to watch for wolves, get me to fresh water, and protect me from Mickey Mouse balloon goblins.” 

It’s magical: horse not warlock.

In the wild, young horses aren’t allowed to be out of control, selfish fools. Out of control, selfish, fool horses are dangerous to the herd. They distract the grownup horses from watching out for wolves and killer balloons. It isn’t allowed. I like horses. They make sense.

People, who think they know about horses from watching Disney movies, find the concept of round penning mindless and mean. It’s the human equivalent of time-out for teenager horses where humans push a horse around and around in an enclosed circle until he’s paying attention, ready to surrender, ready to join the herd, ready to become a valuable member of society.

It isn’t mean. It works, because horses are sensible—also humble. 

In human society, selfish, fool, twerp, offspring put the entire herd at risk by distracting everyone from the real troubles of the human herd: the work of growing the herd, the necessity of educating the next generation not to be out of control and selfish, and the endless need to watch out for the prowling wolves ready to eat us all—not to mention those crazy balloon goblins.

When we treat animals like animals they can teach us a lot about the right way to live and be happy.

It’s simple: herd not twerp.

Linda (Mount Up) Zern 

DONE

Aric married Lauren in March, two years ago. He’s the oldest and the last, and after he got married I knew that I could rest in the shade of the tree from which I cut the laurel wreath of my success as a mother. Let me rejoice, I thought, and take up oil painting or green bean growing or apply to be on the Osceola county volunteer mounted posse. You don’t have to tell me twice. In my “retirement” from mothering I intended to collect free horses and try to turn them into the sorts of beasts that don’t run away when people fly helicopters at them. When my first child was married I was given a book, informing me that my duties as the mother-of-the-newly-married-person should include ONLY the sharing of an occasional home remedy and a recipe—if I knew any—anything else constituted meddling. You don’t have to tell me twice. Nagging is exhausting and meddling is nagging’s ugly, warty cousin—also exhausting.  I would be too busy becoming Grandma Moses anyway. Then the phone calls started coming. “Mom, you’ve got to help me,” The newly married Heather said. “Only if this is for a recipe and/or a remedy,” I said. “How do you roll crescent rolls?” “You mean the kind in the can?” “Are there another kind?” She sounded a little bit miffed. “Well, find the point on the triangle,” I instructed, wisely. “The point? There are three points. It’s nothing but points,” she pouted. “Yes, true. There are three points, but I don’t think that it’s an equilateral triangle.” Finally, a use for my college mathematics; I felt smug. “What the flip are you talking about? I rolled one up and it looks like poop.” “That can’t be right,” I reassured. WHAT I SAID NEXT: “Just roll up the long edge, so that the little apex of the triangle is on top, and then bend it into a little crescent, moon shape.” WHAT SHE HEARD: “Roll up the quadrihexial axis of doughy junk around a stick and fling it at the moon.” “Okay Mom, listen I have to go now, because I have a nosebleed,” Heather said, sounding muffled and stuffy from the ensuing nosebleed. “Okay dear. Just apply pressure to your nose, but don’t tilt your head back. Goodbye and good remedy.” Regarding the book with tips for mothers of the newly married—my daughter (wise beyond her cooking skill level) finally reassured me, “Forget the book. The book is crap. That’s not our family. It will never be our family. Just be yourself that kind of meddling has always worked before.” True. I can’t say we always roll our crescent rolls the way everybody else does, but we do have a certain style, and that’s always worked before. Linda (Leave A Message) Zern

KEYED IN

I have a blog called zippityzerns.blogspot.com. I write stuff for my zippityzern’s blog. Once in a while, I advertise a book, but I keep that greedy capitalism to a minimum. 

The stuff I write for my blog is funny stuff, because that’s what seems to come out of my head, like sneezes in the pollen soaked spring—the funny stuff that is, not the snot (that was just a metaphor). 

The hardest part of writing a blog is figuring out what code words you should list in the word code list so that people in Romania will be able to find your funny stuff in the haystack of blog stuff, funny and otherwise, that floats around the Internet like pollen looking for nostrils to torture.

Code words are key words or search words or label words with magic in them that capture the attention of readers, Romanians, also trolls.

On Mondays, I think code words work. On Thursdays, I’m sure they don’t. On Saturday, I suspect trolls of making my knuckles hurt. I don’t know why.

Based on my most “viewed” blog post (2995 page views) called “Hamster Infestation” with the key words—free wash machine, hamster, infestation, rat, and rodent removal—people seem attracted to the words free and infestation. 

I keep trying to figure it out. Is it the possibility that I might be giving away an infested wash machine that intrigues people or that the infestation is hamster-ish in nature?

I’m still working on the formula for attracting an infestation of blog followers, so that I can point to my blog follower infestation and say, “Look, I am funny and people do like me and that’s why the people clog my blog like an infestation of hamsters in a free wash machine on the curb of life. Don’t you want to give me some money?”

Linda (Word Puzzle) Zern