Marshmallow Smuggling (A Classic ZippityZern's)

The way a family spends its weekend is a real indicator of just how nuts a family is, no matter how not nuts they want people to believe they are.

My family is an excellent example of this working theory. We would like you to believe that we are sophisticated intellectual sorts who spend our leisure hours having deep philosophical discussions, frequenting places of stimulating cultural interest, and engaging in recreational activities. Here’s how the weekend really shakes out.

THE DEEP PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSION:

After watching The Lord of the Rings—again—we begin our post-movie, round table discussion by answering the following question, “What would you do if you had a ring that made you invisible?” Answers include . . .

Phillip (the son-in-law) - “I’d go around doing good for all mankind.”

Sherwood (my husband of forever) - “I’d sneak into women’s locker rooms.”

Phillip (when he heard Sherwood’s answer) -  “I’d sneak into women’s locker rooms with Sherwood.”

Me (the voice of reason and sanity) - “I’d sneak up behind Sherwood and Phillip sneaking around women’s locker rooms and bop them on the head.” But then I added, “Invisibility ring! I’m already invisible.  What I need is a VISISBILITY ring.”

 Adam (Please see my essay, Only A Nimrod Would Think that he could Tip Over a Whole Cow) – “I’d sneak up behind cows and tip them over.”

Maren (nineteen at the time) – “Men are dogs.”

 Heather (after twenty minutes of deep thought) – “Pants People?”

 THE FEATURED CULTURAL ACTIVITY:

 Before Disney, before Universal, before civilization there was Gatorland. Gatorland is a semi-tropical ode to tacky tourist traps.  We love it.

Murky pools of fetid water swirl as Florida alligators and the occasional crocodile glide by. Reptiles, roughly the size of sofas, bask in the shimmering heat. We throw marshmallows at them. Visitors can buy hotdogs to toss to the gators, which bring them to a boiling frenzy, but why? For ninety-nine cents and the thrill of watching Adam smuggle a bag of Jet-puffed marshmallows in his pants you can bring these pre-historic handbags to the point of hysteria.

(Please note: It is wrong to do this and you should never, ever smuggle foodstuffs in your pants when visiting Gatorland—ever. I’ll tell.)

And before anyone complains that we’re probably causing cavities in the alligators with our contraband marshmallows, let me remind you that alligators use their teeth for grabbing you, not chewing you. Alligators eat you—after they death roll you, drown up, stuff you under a submerged log, and tenderize you. Then they snack on you. Believe me, those marshmallows never touched their teeth.

Culture is 150 alligators lined up and waiting—breathless—for the next Jet-puffed marshmallow. Our working theory is that they’re sick of eating hot-dogs, biting chunks out of each other, or jumping for dangling chickens. (Note:  Yes they do jump, no matter what Sherwood and Philip say. They don’t jump great, but they jump.)

RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY:

Once a month, we indulge in Sunday dinner with the Chevrier family.  Note: Sometimes the Chevrier’s temporarily adopt one or more of our children and raise them, like in the Middle Ages when you sent your kids to other people’s castles to check out the alligators in their moats. 

So we have dinner. We eat. We talk. We discuss deep philosophical issues like, “Will marshmallows give alligators high blood pressure?” And if we’re really in a wild and crazy mood we take our own temperatures with Carol’s way cool ear thermometer. Aren’t you glad I didn’t say rectal thermometer?

There’s crazy and then there’s weird.

There you have it, philosophy, culture, and recreation. One of the things I like best about our family is that we can really laugh at ourselves. I can’t think of people I’d rather be invisible with or get busted with while smuggling marshmallows in my pants.

Linda (Puffy Pants) Zern

THE MOST IMPORTANT FURNITURE IN YOUR HOUSE

I loved them all.

It’s the bookcase, of course. The most important furniture in a house is the bookcase. Some people don’t trust folks who don’t have a dog. I don’t trust people who don’t have a place for their books. 

People without shelves stuffed to the brim with actual, physical books are quite possibly soulless droids. Oh, they'll comment on the dust that books gather or the space they take up, but in the end, the clicking of their circuitry gives them away. 

I grew up in a house with bookcases crammed with actual, physical books. It was the age of book of the month clubs, Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and the golden age of the public libraries. There were three television channels . . . And books. I loved those books.

My youngest son wants to read a thousand books in his lifetime. I already have. He doesn’t believe me, but then he didn’t grow up when I did, or how I did.

At Oviedo High School, I wandered into the library and didn't leave. I discovered the Salem Witchcraft trials through Miller's The Crucible and then read all the non-fiction versions of the same event. I disappeared into the inspiring, horrific accounts of war written by Leon Uris, the mysteries and histories, and romances of Victoria Holt, the horrors of Edger Allen Poe, the absolute mastery of Shirley Jackson’s writing. And I devoured all the science fiction I could put my hands on. Ray Bradbury made me believe in Martians and rockets and dandelion wine. Pearl S. Buck made me believe in faraway places on the library globe.

I read and read and read. I read books I can't remember the titles of, but their characters still live in my head. There was a funny book about a girl who worked in a bridal shop, a sad book about a girl who worked at the carnival as the snake woman, the story of a housewife who claimed to remember her past life as an Irish woman named Bridey Murphy, and so many more. 

In college, I knew things the other students did not because I had read hundreds of books. 

For a lonely girl born in the fifties to a family with its overly fair share of dysfunction and growing up in the tumultuous sixties, books in bookcases were better than friends. They were lifesavers. 

Today, I’m boxing up hundreds of books to make room for more books—some of which I wrote myself.

Linda (Dust Jacket) Zern

 

 

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