How to Raise Chicks and Ducklings in the Shower

REMOVE HUSBAND FROM SHOWER.

PUT CHICKS AND DUCKLINGS INTO SHOWER.

ADD SIX CHICKS AND TWO DUCKLINGS. CHAIN UP YORKSHIRE TERRIER.

DOING THE DOUBLESPEAK SHUFFLE

Frisk Them!

“The fact of the matter is” that doublespeak is everywhere, and “the bottom line” continues to be a shaky black mark, which may or may not be at the bottom of things, depending on who’s talking. Doublespeak is the art of saying one thing, meaning another, and hoping nobody figures it out until after the election.

My favorite “doublespeak” is often used by governmental agencies like the turtle police out at Cape Canaveral. Cape Canaveral is a national wildlife refuge—also a swampy deterrent for enemy spies trying to peek at NASA stuff. It’s cool. We grow gators, egrets, raccoons, and turtles at Cape Canaveral.

Turtles have great PR at the Cape. We love turtles. We have to love turtles or run the risk of being put in the same category as the raccoons.

Raccoons are turtle egg eating buttheads, and so they must be “selectively reduced.”

We hate raccoons. We have to hate them or run the risk of being “selectively reduced” like the raccoons.

Which brings us to the doublespeak portion of our discussion.  Selective reduction is turtle police talk for what happens to raccoons when too many raccoons fall in love, get married, and make too many baby raccoons at Cape Canaveral. Excessive raccoons spend all their free, non-baby making time looking for turtle eggs to eat. Stupid raccoons. We hate you.

Selective reduction is doublespeak, and doesn’t it sound sensitive and reasonable? Of course it does. It sounds like crowds of caring scientists are out there wandering around the swamp picking and choosing raccoons to relocate to new and less troublesome areas of the planet. That’s not what it means. 

At a program to educate the public about the importance of more funding for the turtle police, I raised my hand and asked, “Do you selectively reduce the raccoons with a hammer or a club?”

The turtle police were not amused.

In England they’re trying to “cull” badgers but the “Up With Badgers” people sued and then chained themselves to some badgers. I don’t know if they cull the badgers with knives or spears.  

NOTE:  Please don’t misunderstand; I’m all about “Up With Turtles.” I just wish the turtle police would be up front with their euphemisms. Don’t act like you’ve never crushed the life out of a pesky turtle egg eating raccoon. Of course you have. And you liked it too.

Life is messy. Science is a business. Life science is a messy business like everything else and Mother Nature is a ravenous turtle egg eating bimbo.

Linda (Shoot Straight) Zern        

The Glad Game

Remember that Disney movie where the little girl was always looking on the bright side of things until you wanted to hold her head in the toilet and flush? You know the girl with “the stubby little nose.” That’s what the mean old lady in the movie told her, “You have a stubby little nose.”  

My mother tortured me with that girl. “Why can’t you be more like Pollyanna?” she would say. I didn’t need an older sister to resent. I had Pollyanna.

For a kid whose first spoken language was sarcasm and whose second language was smart mouth, Pollyanna was my overly cheerful nemesis.

Then I gave birth to several grouch monger children of my own, and I realized that there were worse things then being excessively positive.

My youngest daughter’s first full sentence might have been, “I hates woods-peckers.” She was two.

I tried to set a good example. I tried to teach my children that game Pollyanna used to play—the “Glad Game.” For example:

Hey kids . . .

I hate math in all its many formulas, but I like playing with an abacus. I’m glad the beads are pretty.

I hate that the fluorescent light in my utility room is blinking fast enough to give me seizures when I try to do laundry, but I’m glad because if I squint my eyes I can pretend that I’m at a disco.

My tub faucet exploded and shoots water out like a fire hydrant. It takes an extra long time to fill up my tub. But I’m glad water spurts out and not lava.

When the crows eat all my Japanese plums I’m glad I can shoot straight.

I have a lot of scars from various biopsies and operations, but I’m glad. When people ask about them I get to make up stories about pirates, sword fighting, and yeti attacks. It’s fun.

When my youngest son—our family’s version of Pollyanna—used to run to the window in the morning and declare, “It’s back, Mother! It’s back again. The sun has come back,” I’m glad no one killed him.  He was only three.

Now when my kids complain about their kids being unreasonable, unpredictable, or un-trainable I’m . . . well . . . glad. Fair is fair.

There you have it—the Glad Game. Pollyanna and I did have one thing in common; we both had stubby little noses, which makes me glad, because noses continue to grow as we age. And now I have a normal sized nose with minimal nose hair.

Linda (Happy Day) Zern