Weirdo Magnet

Warning: Some of the observations in this essay may appear politically incorrect, boorish, or just plain snobby. My advice is to “roll with it” and take comfort in the knowledge that your judgmental attitude toward my judgmental attitude is superior in every way.

I am a weirdo magnet.

And when I say “weirdo” I mean I attract people who are loonies, goonies, and possibly sand people. These are folks who stray from the norms of normalcy in ways that are hard to predict under normal circumstances and often involve the wearing of tinfoil pantaloons.

My husband, Sherwood (a man with a somewhat unusual name) once tried to help me find the cause of my weirdo magnetism.

“It’s because you make eye contact, listen to what the sand people have to say, and treat them like regular people.”

“Oh, you mean I’m kind.”

“Exactly! Knock it off.”

I try. I really do. But the tinfoil pantaloon people take me by surprise, often at WalMart.

Like Saturday, when the world’s oldest living hippy spotted me, sized me up, and cut me out of the herd. It’s possible that his grizzled ponytail was pulled a bit tight. From under a moustache the color of old lemonade, he informed me that he enjoyed picking up the clothes that shoppers carelessly threw on the ground in the children’s department at our local WalMart.

“Oh no. I hope it wasn’t me,” I said, feeling my hands clench reflexively around the purple velour hoodie I was holding—sized twelve months.

He continued, “But my back hurts now, and I’m done picking up clothes.” His shopping cart effectively cut me off from the shoe department, the dairy section, and electronics—also freedom.

“Would you like to know something?”

Looking the grizzled hippy man straight in the eye, I said, “Of course.”  I can’t help it. I’m the curious sort.

He gestured vaguely toward the baby seat of his shopping cart.

“I’m getting a little something for myself for Christmas.”

I can’t help it. I’m a visual person. I did look.

Risking a quick glance, I saw that he had two packages of women’s underwear in his cart. White. Polyester. Not thongs. Hopefully. I looked away as quickly as my eyeballs could swivel in my eye sockets.

With a flourish and a wink, he said, “I’ve got two honeys, but they’re different sizes; I’d better not get the panties mixed up. Hee, hee, hee.”

I closed my eyes and tried to picture his “honeys,” plural. I couldn’t.

“Wow, no, I wouldn’t mix up their sizes. That might be big trouble, and you wouldn’t want that, especially at Christmas time. Hee, hee, hee. Well, good luck with that.”

Growing irrationally more concerned that he was about to ask me my panty size I began to inch away and look for my grown daughter, a daughter who had managed to completely disappear into a rack of little girl’s pajama bottoms during the conversation. See above.

I know. I know. It was a harsh, biased, judgmental response to the perfectly nice overtures of a perfectly nice panty-loving, weirdo. 

I can’t help it. I’m a weirdo magnet.

Linda (Two-For-One) Zern

  

Knees Like Knuckles

By the year 2099 (if we survive 2012, 2013, and the year that asteroid comes back with Bruce Willis riding on it) the world will be covered with old people. Some will be older than others.

I am anticipating that oldness will be very hip in the coming years and some oldness hipper than others, depending on the condition of people’s knees—also hips, real or faux. My husband and I will be on the tail end of the baby booming retirement craze, having been born on the tail end of the baby boom.  Actually, we were born on the fizzle at the end of the baby boom, which means that our hips still work (last check) but our knees talk more than they used to. Okay, our knees don’t really “talk” they cuss, and in my husband’s case, they swear up a blue streak.

The following is actual pillow talk between two fifty-somethings contemplating the end of their functioning kneecaps, okay, it’s a conversation between me and my boyfriend of thirty-three years (Sherwood the Knuckle-Knee Zern):

“Sherwood, I’m giving you the two minute warning. Brace yourself; I’m going to roll over and give you a hug and a goodnight kiss.”

I heard him rearranging himself next to me, amid the sounds of his shoulder popping, his knee mourning the loss of its ACL, and his spine snapping shut.

I rolled toward him and puckered up; his shoulder popped like a breakfast circle made by elves.

He moaned and clutched his shoulder, which brought his knee in contact with a particularly rough fold of bed linen. He thrashed around on our pillow top mattress. I watched.

“Babe, have you been doing those exercises with that big rubber band thingy the doctor gave you.”

“Which one?” he gasped out.

“Hunh, which what? Which exercise, rubber band thingy, or body part? Is that what you mean?” He continued to thrash, concentrating on not answering me. “Okay, have you been doing your shoulder exercises with the blue rubber band thingy the doctor gave you?”

He paused in his thrashing.

“I always pack the rubber band thingy the doctor gives me when I travel.”   

 “You know, you have to actually do the exercises with the rubber band thingy to keep your body parts from falling off with old age and mildew.” I started in on my (the-couple-who-exercises-together-stays-out-of-the-orthopedic-surgeon’s-office-together) speech, finishing with, “How many of those exercise rubber bands from the doctor do you have anyway?”

He considered.

“I have enough of those exercise rubber bands that if I sewed them all together I’d have a hell of a slingshot.”

“A slingshot might be a good thing to have when the zombie apocalypse gets here, ‘cuz you sure aren’t going to be outrunning those zombies anymore,” I said and gave him a goodnight kiss.  “And what’s with the cussing? You never cuss.”

“That wasn’t me; that was my knee back talking.”

I got up to take some Advil PM for the burning in my lumpy finger bones—also known as arthritis, which in my case is caused by meanness—also mildew.  Bring on the zombie baby booming apocalypse.

Linda (Got Fit Hips?) Zern

Pooping in Your Pants Never was Happiness

Potty training is a real **pisser.

Just ask Sadie, my three-year old granddaughter, who at any given moment breaks into hysterical weeping when she has a potty training malfunction or thinks that she MIGHT have had a potty training malfunction or SUSPECTS that she might have a potty training malfunction sometime in the future—near or far.

Just ask Kipling, my three-year grandson, who breaks into hysterical weeping when someone mentions to him that it might be time to change his diaper, a diaper hanging approximately to his ankles and filled with “the usual” byproducts—also an action figure or two and random chunks of cement. We have a fun family nickname for a diaper that has seen dryer better days; we call it the venom sack.

Just ask Sherwood, my husband, who is sensitive (apparently) to something used at restaurants to create meals—like food, and who loves to regale the family at Sunday dinner with the tale of his famous potty malfunction in a public bathroom. In the lobby! Of a Marrott! At a sink! Don’t ask! Note: For the full story you have to come to Sunday dinner. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you’ll be required to change Kip’s diaper.

Just ask Heather, Kip’s mother, who has Irritable Bowl Syndrome and a Gastroenterologist. Heather says that when she goes to the doctor, it’s a waiting room full of eighty year olds and her, but it’s worth it to get the good pills. Heather’s doctor says that IBS is often caused by internalized stress, probably from trying to potty train a kid with random chunks of cement in his disposable pants.

Actually, several members of my family seem to have trouble with their gastroenterology and it’s not just the toddlers, which makes family outings exciting. Receptacles that members of my family have considered using as an emergency potty include: trashcans, hastily dug holes, a hedge on the National Mall in DC when the public bathroom was closed for cleaning, and my handbag.

And that’s why I don’t believe in “the dignity of man,” because there’s no such beast and even if there were such a beast as a dignified man, he’d still have to poop somewhere. Trust me on this.

Linda (Regular Jane) Zern

**Pisser – a crude ancient Greek word meaning a pain in the diaper.