POOP SHOES AND QUARANTINE

On the flight from L.A. to Australia they hand you a skinny yellow card and tell you to fill it out, declaring stuff. Do you have any fruit, nuts, porn, or chicken poop on your shoes? And you’d better, by golly, fess up or they fine you—big hefty bucks.

Honesty is the cheapest policy.

So we declared. No fruit. No nuts. No porn. But things got hinky with the chicken poop question. Well, actually it was more a question of possible exposure to chicken poop.

The question that tripped us up?

Have you within the last thirty days been exposed to animals that poop or produce assorted dingle berries in a rural setting?  (I’m paraphrasing.)

The answer was a resounding, “You bet. Why just this morning or yesterday morning or tomorrow morning before the world turned on its axis, we were hip deep in animals that poop.” We checked the box for yes.

In Australia, railing through the immigration and customs line, holding our skinny yellow card at the ready we prepared to declare our familiarity with organic farm animal by-product.

A pre-screener, a lovely woman of possible Asian descent, took our skinny yellow card, made note of our honesty on question number ten or maybe it was twelve and declared us quarantined, but not before looking at our shoes with squinty eyes.

Panicked, my husband, scrambled to explain our damning poop answer, “We have horses. They poop. We had to feed them before we left Florida, thus the reason for their pooping—all the feeding and eating. The horses not us.” Sweat broke out on his forehead.

I stroked his arm, calming him, and said, “I think she just wants to make sure we haven’t brought our muck-out boots or packed bags of manure in our luggage. That’s all.”

The pre-screener squinted harder at our shoes, made a check on our card, and then pointed us to the quarantine area.

An official of the Australian immigration and customs department squinted some more at our shoes, quizzed us on our manure exposure, possibly sniffed us, laughed a bit when we declared our bodies poop free, stamped our card, and then waved us through the door into the great down under.

On the trip from Sidney to Melbourne, the third plane ride of our twenty-seven hour global trip, I got a bit punch drunk and started to laugh. Snorting through my nose, I leaned over and confessed, “Babe, I hate to admit this, but I think I might have had some chicken sh*t on my shoes, but I was afraid to say anything.”

Horrified, he clamped his hand over my mouth. I licked the palm of his hand. He let me go.

“Kidding! I’m just kidding. But wouldn’t that be crazy to be locked up abroad for contraband chicken poo shoes?” I looked deep in his eyes. “Hey, it may not be a sixty million dollar Air Force One trip on the taxpayer’s dime, but it’s already been quite an adventure.”

He winked. I smiled. And then I double-checked the bottom of my shoes just to be sure I wasn’t breaking quarantine or smuggling dingle berries.

Linda (All Clear) Zern

Loving Goats

In the weak sunshine of a Florida winter, it is customary for some Floridians to sit on their septic tanks, their faces tipped up to the sky, their sinuses exposed to the gentle medicinal comfort of the sun’s warmth, their hope as raw as their throats that God and nature will heal them of their Ebola-Rhino-Flu-Plague. 

Okay, sometimes I pull a lawn chair over to the septic tank and sit in the sun and hope that it will make me feel better when I’m sick. Sometimes, Phillip, my son-in-law, brings the grandkids over and sits on the septic tank with me. What can I say; it’s Saint Cloud. 

Once upon a time, we (Philip and I) sat in the sun on the septic tank. I was feeling as weak as two kittens in a sinking sack from Ebola-Rhino-Flu-Plague, while Conner and Zoe (the grand-kidlets) cavorted merrily under a Japanese Plum tree. 

Zoe sang, “Fruit-fruit-fruit, I want two fruits.” Conner pooped in his pants.

The world spun gently, right up to the point when Conner, poop in drawers, stumbled in the direction of a strange, horned, white goat that had mysteriously appeared in our yard, having journeyed from somewhere beyond next door.

“Phillip, grab that boy before Billy Goat Gruff knocks your kid down.”

The goat flipped his scraggly beard in the direction of my voice. Phillip ran and scooped Conner up, setting him next to me in my pool of medicinal sunshine on the septic tank. The goat, a smallish—no higher than my knee variety—with dirty blond hair and “come hither” yellow devil eyes, started a slow determined trot in our direction.

Phillip, never a lover of goats or farm creatures in general, said, “What does it want with us?” He sounded nervous—also squeamish. 

“Oh, he’s probably just seeing what’s what.” I tried to sound confident.

The goat kept trotting.

I closed my eyes in exhaustion brought on by the Ebola-Rhino-Flu-Plague. The odor of goat, BOY goat, engulfed me, and wow, did he smell close! When I opened my eyes, it was to the sight of this stinker of a goat trying to French kiss the sleeve of my shirt and the sound of obscene noises of goat love. I bolted out of my lawn chair.

I yelled, “Or he could be looking for a date.”

The goat made a lunge at my leg. I dodged.

“Grab the kids before it’s too late—this stinky goat is in full on goat whoopee love mode.”

Phillip scooped up Conner but Zoe, misunderstanding what I had said, began running wildly around waving and yelling, “Go away stinger goat. Go away.”

Confused, but hopeful, the goat surveyed the scene and then lunged at the closest leg—Phillip’s leg.

Zoe waved and yelled, “Leave my daddy’s leg alone.”

“It’s having its’ way with your leg,” I screamed, as I ripped the garden house from the side of the house.

“Run!” I ordered.

Expecting a torrent of water, I turned the spigot on full blast, but lying advertising and crap marketing had given me a false sense of security in my new never-kink hose. A weak drip of water taunted me, and I cringed to see more crimps and kinks than hose.

Phillip shrieked.

Zoe shrieked. “Bad Stinger Goat!!”

I whipped the hose from side to side to un-kink the kinks and to defend whatever honor Phillip had left in his right leg. The goat continued to lust.

Finally, the hose kinks came free and I fire-hosed that nasty, stinker of a goat. The goat loved it. The distraction gave Phillip enough of a head start that he, Conner, and Zoe made it to the screened porch. I brought up the rear, not two steps ahead of the now wet and super rank horn-dog of a goat.

What I saw in my son-in-law’s eyes still brings a shudder to my soul. What he said next, I cannot forget.

“I showed fear,” he said. “I showed fear.” He hung his head. 

Conner tried to pet the goat through the porch screen. I tipped over a lawn table and shoved it against the screen door.

“You smell like a bad stinger goat,” I said, avoiding Phillip’s eyes. “I hope you have a change of clothes.” 

Before he finished slinking off to wash himself, I said, “We will never speak of this.” His chin collapsed onto his chest. He continued slinking. Somewhere in the yard a goat bawled his loneliness. 

This is the story that I started my website with several years ago. To catch up on all my tales of hose kinks, goat attacks, and family shame check out www.zippityzerns.com

The Case for Continued Hunkering After Hurricane Season

The saddest part of the end of hurricane season is the cessation of the use of the word hunker.

What a fabulous word and society only cracks it out and dusts it off when a soul-crushing, city-destroying hurricane is on its way. That's unfortunate. Very few words stand up to the word hunker in both multiple uses and varied meanings.

I've told the story before of the 'possum we found after it had crawled, crept, snuck into our garage only to stuff itself into the underside of a grandkid's riding toy. The 'possum was waiting for night to fall so it could stumble over to the cat's food and stuff itself stupid.

Our daughter, a thousand months pregnant, claimed that she'd seen the 'possum wobble into the garage and disappear into the bottom of the Happy Tots Pedal Truck. We didn't believe her. We thought she was drunk on pregnancy hormones. She wasn't.

When my husband tipped over the riding toy, a mammal with approximately ten-thousand teeth, snarled its howdy-do.

That toothy beast had hunkered down inside that riding toy. We poked the toy. We shook it. We rolled it over and over. That 'possum didn't budge. Finally, we had to turn the hose on it to pry it out of there. Soaked, miffed, and wildly uncomfortable the 'possum shuffled off to hunker down under the garden bridge, and that, Dear Readers, is a fine, fine example of what it means to hunker.

When hurricanes threaten, the word hunker flies around like a kid on a pedal truck. Get food, water, batteries, and some food for the cat because life, as you know it, will be like someone with a giant garden hose trying to pry you out of your safe place. The power will fail. Inside will be hotter than outside. Your air will cease to be conditioned. Day will turn to night. You will feel threatened, frightened, and annoyed but hang on tight unless you have a bridge you can scurry off to hunker under for a bit.

Love the word. We should use it for more stuff than killer storms:

Life is hard, but I think I'll hunker down and give it my best.

Hunker down and keep the faith.

Hunkering down, I refused to be offended.

They tried to shake me out of my faith and hope and charity, but I hunkered down.

You can't make me quit because I'm hunkered down like a 'possum stuffed under a garden bridge.

Move along; I'm hunkering down.

Or I'm getting ready for the next swirling monster of wind and rain so that I can hunker down when the storm howls.

Let's keep the hunkering going. That's all I'm saying.

Linda (Playing 'Possum) Zern