HAMSTER INFESTATION

So many time saving, work reducing, stress minimizing gadgets—so little time to figure out how they work or how to fix them when they don’t work or how to rid them of hamster infestations.

Troublesome, especially when you’ve become completely dependent and addicted to the use of afore mentioned gizmos.

Washers and dryers are real stress relievers—or they can be. When we were young, poor, newly married, and our clothes were often embarrassingly rumpled, someone gave us a FREE washing machine.

The FREE washing machine had a rat living in it. The rat left piles of rodent flotsam in and around the machine to make sure we understood who owned what.

We owned our rumpled clothes. The rat owned our washing machine. I found the situation stressful—not to mention frightening. What happened, or could happen, or might happen when adding that last pair of random biker shorts to the load? You might discover a rat doing the sidestroke during the wash cycle.

Those suckers can jump—the rat, not the biker shorts.

My newly wedded husband had to trap the washing machine rat and then bonk it on the head with a barbell. Afterwards, I thought I heard him shout, Today, I am a man.

Some years later, Brownie the “Knocked-Up” Hamster managed to escape her cage into our brand new squeaky-clean (never used) house. She re-located to the back of my brand new squeaky-clean (never used) stove. Driven by instinct and early labor, Brownie began to nest in the insulation of the stove. Occasionally, Brownie would stick her nose through the grating on the back of the stove, wiggle her whiskers at me, and giggle.

My phone call to the service center is legendary.

“You don’t understand. There’s a hamster nesting in the back of my new stove.”

“Serial number please.”

“No, no serial number. This is an emergency. Brownie the Hamster is pregnant. She may be crowning.” My voice became more strident with each word.

Brownie pressed one eye to the grating and watched my panicked pacing. A whisper of pink insulation drifted from the back of the stove to the kitchen floor. 

“I can’t find any record of an extended warranty for you Mrs. Zern.”

“What difference does that make? Does your fancy warranty cover hamster labor and delivery?”

“We can have a repairman out there Friday of next week.”

“NEXT WEEK!  By that time, I’ll have a flock of hamsters setting up a condominium association in my beautiful new glass top stove. Argggggh!”

I thought I heard Brownie the Hamster asking for an epidural. 

“Listen, let me ask you something, Wanda,” I said, trying another tack. “That’s right, isn’t it? Wanda? So Wanda, what might happen, I mean what might the possible ramifications be, if I turn the oven on full blast and set it to self-clean?”

It took hours to pry Brownie out of that time saving invention.

Finally, when a car repairman, while checking the engine of our family van called out, “Hey lady, did you know you have a rat living in your engine?” I knew enough to play it cool.

“Of course I know there’s a rat in my engine. She’s our hamster’s second cousin, twice removed. Visiting from Bithlo.”

There are days when I’d rather wash my clothes by beating them with rocks down by the river, cook my buffalo on a stick over a fire pit, and drag my kids around between two tree trunks lashed to a goat. There’d be less stress, less work, and a lot less time wasted—also less rodent drama.

Linda (Driving Miss Rat) Zern 

     

Bug Zapper Blues

When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements.

It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space.

One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement.

“Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.”

Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes.

“Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.”

He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away.

We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move.

At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.”

Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?”

“Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.”

He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day.

This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might.

Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there?

Thank you for your support,

Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern 

In The Beginning, There Was Literature

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Walking across my college campus after one of my Medieval Literature classes, I overheard the following conversation from my fellow students:

“I don’t need to hear this Bible shit,” the young man said.

“Yeah. You’re right. I don’t need this religion bull shit,” his girlfriend agreed.

“How was I supposed to know that unicorns were considered a symbol for that Jesus guy?” he retorted. “Christ!”

I sighed.

First of all, it’s true. Unicorns, in the Middle Ages, were considered a symbol for the God of the Christian faith. They symbolized purity, uniqueness, and holiness.

Later, my Medieval Literature professor sadly informed me, “Linda, every semester, it gets harder and harder to find anyone who’s even heard of Genesis, let alone read it. Try teaching a class on Medieval Literature to people who have no working knowledge of their own heritage.”

And so, it goes.

Once upon a time, the King James’ version of the Bible was our national textbook. We taught children to read from it. We gave them an appreciation of story because of it. We catalogued human nature in it. We shared our heritage through it. And to our children we imparted a basic system of rules that allowed for a common culture.

Literature, writing, poetry, story, message, premise, metaphor, and simile: it’s all in there. The language of the King James’ version of the Bible is challenging and beautiful. The stories are compelling and dramatic. Close to Elizabethan English, it stretches our comprehension. It’s an AP course in words and language, and it’s free.

Reading the Bible doesn’t have to be about religion, if you don’t want it to be. That’s what I wish I would have said to the young man in the above conversation. And then I would have asked him, “Is it any wonder that the average reading level of the American public has fallen to, according to the United Stated Department of Health and Human Services, a seventh-grade level?”

Recently, while reading The New Testament, I came across a phrase that spoke volumes to me as a writer. To the Philippians, Paul said, “I joy.” What a beautiful way to express a fundamental human state of being: happiness. He is happy. Clear. Concise. Elegant. I’ve never read it expressed like that anywhere else, and I’ve read a lot.

In my opinion, I am a better writer for having studied the language and story of the Bible, and I can appreciate the power of symbols—like unicorns.

Free the speech. Read. Everything. Always.

And I hope you will not be afraid to think deeply about, “Why the world wags and who wags it.” (From, The Once and Future King, by T. H. White, published the year I was born.)

Linda (I Joy) Zern