DONE DEAL

They are my finest work and my glory. Lauren (the newest Mrs. Zern) Aric, Heather, Maren and Adam

Aric got married Saturday. He’s the oldest and the last and now I can rest in the shade of the tree from which I cut the laurel wreath of my success as a mother. Let me rejoice 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 intend 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. 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

     

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