Bucolic Bird Brain

I recognized that look as I stared at vacant eyes, gaping mouth and body language that screamed, "Feed me!" I remembered that look, sitting on my couch.  I knew a hungry teenager when I saw one.

The problem was that this "teenager" was a bird--A BIRD--a half grown scruffy-feathered, gap-beaked blue jay bird, and it wanted to be fed. Typical. I had just scratched up an earthworm with my garden rake. What could it hurt? I fed the earthworm to the scraggly blue jay teenager bird. It was a bucolic, earthy gardener's moment. Charming.

It was also summertime. Our air conditioner was broken. Typical. So, I called the AC man, a nice congenial man with interesting tattoos on his large muscles. He looked like he could tunnel out of a prison or had.  He arrived and got to work puttering around the air conditioning unit. I puttered around my garden.

The entire time I had that strange, eerie feeling that someone was watching me . . . and yelling at me. Typical.

There it was, plopped on a mulch pile--slouching, staring, and yelling--the blue jay teenager bird. Not only was the pimply bird slouching, it looked like it needed a shave and some deodorant. Typical.

I walked closer. Its mouth gaped open. I attempted to shoo it away. Its mouth gaped wider. I talked to it and said, "What's your deal?" Its mouth almost unhinged at the jaw. I recognized that look. It wanted to be fed--again.

Get a job, I thought.

The AC man finished his puttering and brought me the bad AC news. We stood shoulder to shoulder, the invoice on his clipboard a history of AC neglect. He gave me the total.  I sighed. I wrote a check.

Blue jay teenager bird, its tiny brain firing on all 1.5 cylinders, recognized "worm-getting-lady." It sailed, erratically, from the top of the mulch pile, past my face, to land on AC man's shoulder. I screamed. AC man used his large muscles to toss his clipboard. AC man screamed. The teenager bird's mouth gaped open. It didn't budge from its shoulder perch.

I thought I should explain why I had collapsed onto the ground.

"I'm so sorry. The baby bird thinks that I'm its mother. I fed it a worm. It startled me."

AC man tried to dislodge the blue jay teenager bird from his shoulder. It reluctantly flew away to a nearby tree branch.

"Wow, how amazing was that?" I said, trying to sound like Snow White, who had the power to sing birds out of trees and was used to them landing on various body parts.

"Lady, you shouldn't scream like that." He took my check and retreated to his work van.

I took my rake and retreated to my garden just as the blue jay teenager bird (once again recognizing "worm-getting-lady") dove at my head from the tree branch. It crash-landed onto my hair. I screamed the scream of the banshee and began running blindly, flailing wildly, and sobbing hysterically. The blue jay teenager bird's mouth gaped open as it clung to my wildly bobbing head.

AC man's van, its window tinted, never moved even though the engine was running. I streaked across the yard, back and forth, in front of the work van. The bird rode on my head like it was waiting for the eight- second count in a bull riding competition. I thought I detected the soft lilt of laughter, but seeing as how my screaming went on for while, I could be mistaken about that.

Finally, blue jay teenager bird noticed a fat grub on the ground and flew off in an attempt to feed itself. And that's how I became an empty nester.

I promise; this story is true, mostly. It is an example of creative non-fiction, which is the truth dressed up to go to a party.  For example, I could have been wearing a hat, but it's funnier if the bird landed in my hair.

Happy spring,

Linda (worm-getting-lady) Zern  

"Feed me!"

     

On My Own, Pretending Todd Gives a Crap

Feral pigs rampaged through the yard, dangerously close to my leaf lettuce and loofah gourds.  They were followed closely by bobcats, looking for take-out for their kittens. Coyotes howled in the distance.

Not to worry I thought. There are county agencies, programs, divisions, organizations, and entire tasks forces dedicated to solving all my troubles. Right? My local government would help I thought. Someone is out there waiting for my phone call, sitting eagerly behind a government-issue metal desk in quiet anticipation of being of service—to me.

 Okay, sometimes I’m a giant nitwit.

“Hello, this is Osceola County Animal Control. My name is Todd. How can I help you?”

Trying to win friends and influence Todd, I went for lighthearted.

“Hey there, Todd. I need to talk to your Feral Pig, Bobcat, Coyote Division.”

Todd was a dud and not easily influenced.

“Lady, it’s just me.” Another phone rang in the background. “Hang on,” he said. When he returned he was still not up for silliness or joshing about.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I just need some info on the rampaging wildlife around here. I don’t want to get in any trouble, trying to do the right thing, be responsible, educated myself—that kind of thing. So, what’s the scoop on feral pigs? I just put in my spring gar . . . ”

“Not our responsibility, the federal government is supposed to be taking care of the feral pig population.” He did not sound like a true believer of anything.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine somewhere in the bowels of a stately federal government building all the way up there in Washington DC, a kindly government worker, shoulders hunched, glasses fogged, heart contracting and expanding with worry over the approximately five to 12,000 feral pigs threatening Linda L. Zern’s newly sprouted Golden Queen Corn crop. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t make myself see it, no matter how hard I squished my eyes shut.

“In other words, no one cares. So, what if I shoot the suckers?”

Todd began to chant.

“You cannot discharge a firearm within . . .”

“Not a problem. I live out.” Todd continued to chant city regulations. “Out, Todd, out not in. Out. I have to call state troopers if I’m attacked by roving bands of man eating men—out, way out.” The chant grew fainter.

He finally paused and said, “You can call a trapper and trap the pigs.”

“What? Like a big game hunter? Or somebody who digs a big pit and fills it with giant mousetraps? What?”

Finding out that I lived outside the city limits changed Todd’s attitude toward me. He softened. He warmed up; he came clean.

“Well, I’ll tell you, lady. We tried trapping pigs once out Poinciana way. There were thirty or forty pigs tearing up the place. We trapped one, and then somebody came and shot the pig in the trap and stole the meat,” he paused and then spoke slowly and distinctly. “There’s no hunting season on pigs.”

He sighed and then had to take another phone call.

“What about bobcats?”

“We don’t catch those, but if you trap them we’ll come pick them up, and there’s a hunting season on bobcat.”

All I could picture was a box, a stick, a string, and a hotdog—also claw marks—lots and many claw marks.

“What about the coyotes? I just don’t want to shoot first and ask questions later; you know?”

“Nobody’s in charge of those things, and you ain’t going to trap them either. No way,” he paused and spoke very very slowly and distinctly, “and there’s no hunting season on coyotes.”

I realized that “no hunting season” was code for “fire at will.”

“Okay, then Todd, pretty much what I’m hearing here is ‘Lady, you’re on your own.’”

He made a non-committal snort noise and hung up.

I had more questions. Like, exactly what does Animal Control control? If I report a giant panda attack will I get more action?  If I shoot a giant panda, will I go to jail forever? If I’m attacked and eaten by a giant panda will you, Todd, be a pallbearer at my funeral?

Overall, it was good to have clarification on the bureaucratic process, because lady, trust me, you are on your own. Just ask Todd.

Linda (Stonewall) Zern 

 

 

To Tell the Truth With Your Elbows

According to a special documentary on “body language” over ninety percent of all human communication is non-verbal. (As I type this, my shoulders are very pinched and close to my ears.)

Everyone lies.  I am told that this is true, because people have seen it on a t-shirt and a fictional character on television repeats it a lot. (At this point, my lips are pursed, emphasizing the fine lines and fissures into which my lipstick tends to pour.)

Therefore, if everyone lies and ninety percent of communication is non-verbal then forget about what’s coming out of people’s lips and concentrate on what’s happening between their eyes. (A wrinkle shaped like a cavern just deepened near my left eye.)

I hate lying. I love liars. (My right eye is twitching so hard I can hear it.)

That is a lie. I don’t love liars. I try to love liars in the “love the sinner, hate the sin” way, but it’s hard, because liars tend to lie, and they can’t be trusted with your automobiles, wallet, lawn mower, good name, daughters, or your female cat, and she’s been spayed. I continue to try to love liars, but it’s a struggle.

No, it’s not a struggle; that’s a lie. It’s more like a wrestle—Greco/Roman style. 

Liars are exhausting, because you have to listen to them lying and “read” their body language all at the same time. Or if you’re not around when the liar is lying then you have to hire someone to watch the liar lie, and if you live in a particularly dishonest society, eventually you will run out of people, to watch the people, who are supposed to be watching the people—in case the people are lying or plagiarizing or faking important governmental reports. (See?  It’s exhausting.) So, if it’s true that everyone lies then we’re screwed.

My favorite story about liars is a story my husband likes to tell. (I use it here with permission—no, not really. I totally stole his story.)

At a father/son campout, my husband and others continually warned one young boy to cease and desist putting a sharp, pointy stick in the campfire, igniting the end of the sharp, pointy stick, and then wandering about the campground while waving the now flaming, sharp, pointy stick in the air. He agreed to stop—verbally. (The body language test results have been misplaced.) “Put that stick out,” they demanded. He put it out.

Sherwood retired to his tent, only to emerge later to see the young boy standing in the middle of the campground holding the flaming, sharp, pointy stick aloft—apparently in tribute to the pointy stick fire gods.

“Son!” My husband calls all boys son; it doesn’t necessarily mean a blood relation. “Son! Did you put that stick back in the fire?”

The young boy said, “Nope.”

We have boys. Sherwood knew what he was up against.

“Are you holding a stick?”

“Maybe.”

“Is your hand in a curved position around a former tree branch?”

The phrase “former tree branch” tripped the kid up.

“Yes,” the boy said.

“Is that stick on fire?”

“I don’t know.”  A shower of sparks made the boy flinch. His body language gave him away.

I know it’s old fashioned. I know it’s considered a simple fix for a simple mind, but I like the Ten Commandments. They were written on stone, thus saving paper. They’re short. They’re numbered. They’re to the point.

I especially like the one that read:  Thou shalt not force me to have to learn body language to be able to tell if you’re a big, fat liar when I ask, “Who busted the loveseat?” and you tell me, “I don’t know.” And then six months later, I find broken bits of loveseat hidden behind our wedding picture and all over the house—Sherwood Kevin Zern! And all the grandkids were in on it, including Reagan and she doesn’t have teeth. (I am now leaning toward the computer screen in a combative, aggressive posture.) 

Yep. That’s my favorite commandment. Nah, I’m lying.  Actually, I believe that there are really only two commandments and they’re my favorites.

Thou shalt love God and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself . . . because people who love their neighbors don’t lie to, steal from, lust for, cheat over, shoot at, curse up, or covet their neighbor’s good looking donkeys. Nice people only need two rules, in my opinion.

Read This!

Linda (Read My Lips) Zern