In honor of our upcoming wedding anniversary I would like to hie back to a simpler time; a time when my husband and I realized we were outnumbered by the children, and we were forced to institute the following rule: The first one in the marriage to break and run had to take the kids with them—all the crazy, gum chomping, kids. Good times.
When Sherwood and I were young we produced a lot of little kids, a lot of grubby, grimy little kids, who because of their love affair with dirt and grime required a ton of hosing off—also bathing. When these little kids took baths they sometimes chewed huge wads of bubble gum. I didn’t mind; it kept them quiet. (For a while they tried to bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with them into the tub, but I put the hoodoo on that right away.)
In the early days and even though we had a lot of filthy children, we had only one bathroom. It had one bathtub. One fine evening, Sherwood decided to take a bath in our one and only bathtub, the very same tub our children had used earlier that evening.
From the bathroom I heard the haunting boom of my husband’s voice.
“Linda, get in here.” His voice was thick with some emotion I found hard to identify. It was repugnance.
Naked and dripping, he stood leaning against the sink, his arms braced against the porcelain, bent slightly forward at the waist. He was not smiling or winking.
“Look at this.” He pointed to his hairy damp backside bits. He added, “Is that what I think it is?”
Me, I’m a funny girl, I asked, “Is this a test?” I did not look.
“No, I mean it. Look at my butt.”
“I’m not looking at your butt. You can’t make me.”
He pointed harder at his backside, completely devoid of any spirit of good-natured high jinx. There was more back and forth, denial and insistence and such, but I’ll spare you. I finally realized that this might be a serious situation causing real distress for my husband because he’d been standing there leaning against the sink, naked and pointing at himself for, well, longer than was good for either one of us.
I bent down and I did look.
Sure enough, there it was, a wad of Double Bubble chewing gum the size of a hamster’s head nestled in . . . ummm. . . well, just nestled.
I said, “Oops.”
He said, “Get it off.”
I asked, “How?”
It was a good question. I believe I missed the chapter in Home Economics dealing with “butt hair gum removal.”
I’d heard a rumor once—something club soda—stains or something, but I didn’t think club soda was going to apply in this case. I knew you could use ice to freeze gum and then chip it off of stuff, but chipping seemed the wrong sort of action to take. Pulling was right out. Shaving/cutting seemed promising, but it was going to be close work.
I can remember hoping that my hand was going to be steady enough, what with the laughing and all.
The real problem is that there just isn’t any kind of hotline for this. I blame the government.
Let me just report that the operation was a success, and I employed a combination of techniques.
To the children and now grandchildren I would like to say, “Let this be a lesson to you. Never chew gum in the bathtub. Chewing gum in the bathtub can make your father have to have his posterior shaved. There are reasons for family rules. Rules are our friends, and YaYa doesn’t make this stuff up. She has experience. She’s lived.”
Linda (Steady Now) Zern
Monday, October 21, 2019
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
The Daily Grind
Because I am so engrossing and we live in an era that celebrates the glory of accomplishing absolutely nothing, I’d like to share with my friends and family a day in my fascinating, engrossing life.
3:00am – I am awakened from a troubled sleep by a circus troop of raccoons assaulting the family trashcans.
3:13am – Motion sensor light comes on as the raccoons form “HUMAN” pyramid. That’s right; I said HUMAN. I imagine the raccoon heap now measures 4’ 11” inches in height and comes up to my chin.
3:20am – I race outside in my fluffy bathrobe with a broom to confront raccoon troop. Trip over garbage slung thirty feet in all directions. Realize raccoons have thrown invisibility cloak over themselves.
3:27am – Shake broom at nothing. Watch hair on arms stand up when the coyotes start howling.
3:28am – Go back to bed. Attempt to sleep.
5:00am – QUIT trying to attempt to sleep.
6:00am – Say a simple prayer of thanks that every man-jack of us have lived to see another day. (Note: We will be the first to admit that our family may occasionally merit Biblical destruction.)
6:09am – Check out cable news. Feel vindicated that every prediction I’ve ever made is coming true. Turn up the volume when it’s reported that a woman in North Carolina was attacked in her sleep IN HER BED by a surly—also rabid—raccoon.
6:12am – Shuffle to the bathroom and because I’ve caught my great grandmother’s arthritis, I daydream about my granddaughters having to push me to the mailbox in a wheelchair every day. They will chatter happily as they push. Say a prayer of gratitude for such wonderful granddaughters.
6:31am – Limbs and appendages begin to bend. Postpone nursing home reservation.
7:27am – Feed good animals (not garbage eating night marauders) stuff.
9:00am – Go to yoga and during meditation time, when I’m supposed to be emptying my mind of all stressful thoughts, I try to calculate the force necessary to kill a raccoon with a rock.
10:07am – Declare yoga a bust. Decide to try combat kick boxing next time.
Noon – Eat macaroni or rice or beans. I’m not kidding.
12:00pm to When-I-run-out-of-steam-or-the-coyotes-howl: I scribble and scribble words on virtual paper. Words that no one may ever read, but I still feel compelled to write, in spite of the fact that it makes me look like an agoraphobic shut-in.
Bedtime – When the sun sets and the chickens go to sleep, because I’m saving precious energy and resources for future generations—also I can work in bed while wearing pajamas. Don’t be jealous.
Tomorrow – Rinse and Repeat
Linda (Night Stalker and Fascinating Person) Zern
Saturday, October 5, 2019
POOP SHOES AND QUARANTINE
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
