In Search of Truth and Pancakes

“Wow! Was she good looking?!”                            

I couldn’t decide if my husband was making an emphatic declaration or asking a question about the woman who had administered his lie detector test. It bugged me.

“The deputy was good looking. Check. But what did she ask you?”

“Everything.”

There are times when holding a conversation with Sherwood, my husband of thirty plus years, is a bit like being in a police interrogation.

“So give me an example of ‘everything,’” I prompted. Then I adjusted the interrogation room light to shine more squarely into his eyes. I was trying to pry information out of him about the lie detector test he had taken to qualify for the Osceola County Volunteer Mounted Posse. Kitty, his horse, has her lie detector test next week.

“You know. Did I ever do drugs? Do I know any felons? Am I related to any felons? Is there anything in my past that I could have been arrested for and wasn’t? Any domestic violence? But this was before the actual lie detector test. We were just chatting.”

“And . . .” I prompted.

“And I said, ‘No, kind of, yes, possibly and does my wife throwing pancakes at me count?”

I felt myself pale.

“You ratted me out. How could you do that? You ratted me out to the Osceola county sheriff’s office. I can’t believe you.”

He looked sheepish.

“Did I mention that the officer was really good looking?”

“Arrrggggg! But did you explain? There were extenuating circumstances and that it was justifiable pancake violence? That you were already playing softball nine days a week. That I had four little kids, six and under. And that you were wanting to join your seventeenth softball league? Did you? Did you? And that I just snapped and the pancakes were there on the griddle, and then they were in my hand, but I don’t remember how they got in my hand or when I started throwing them at you? And that Aric, who was all of six, yelled, ‘Incoming!!’ and then he dragged all his siblings to safety. And is it any wonder that he joined the Army? Did you tell her that part?”

“Yes. Some. Not true. True. Hardly seventeen . . .”

And that’s when I commenced to beating on him with a rubber hose.

Actually, I’d like to join the Osceola Volunteer Mounted Posse myself, but I’m afraid I can’t pass the lie detector test, seeing as how I have a rather checkered past and all. Oh, I didn’t go streaking (naked) on motorcycles or anything like that the way MY HUSBAND DID but I have had a bit of an Irish temper and you know how those people can get.

Linda (Hotcakes) Zern

Buggy Wars

I cannot run for public office—ever. There’s a potential YouTube video. It won’t be flattering.

Somewhere in the bowels of our local box store lurks a security video where I can be seen devolving into the circling, snarling matriarch of a hyena pack.

Because . . .while trying to do the right thing and return my buggy to the buggy corral, I may or may not have rolled that buggy in front of a little old lady who resembled a wizened Mother Goose.

 

Note: Buggy is southern for shopping cart. Mother Goose is southern for an elderly woman pushing a mean buggy.

Let the record show that Mother Goose was completely out of sync, going in the down, and up the out. She’s lucky she wasn’t buggy crushed. Forced to walk three—possibly four—steps out of her way, she blamed me.

 “People are so rude these days. You pulled right out in front of me,” she said.

For a disorienting minute, I thought I might have been rolling down the interstate in my convertible buggy.

It’s important to note that ninety-nine percent of the time in these confrontational shopping buggy-parking situations, I generally say something like, “Sorry. You are so right; rude isn’t a big enough four-letter word for what I am.” Then I grovel.

This time, for reasons only my hormone soaked reptilian brain might fathom, I did not grovel.  I bristled.

Seizing on the driving/parking metaphor, I hiked up my arthritic right hip, slapped the back (buttocks) portion, and while hopping about on one foot, chanted, “Next time signal! Put your blinker on, put your blinker on, put . . .”

Then it got really weird.

Mother Goose hiked up her more arthritic hip, slapped her buttocks region, and shuffle-shuffle-hopping, shot back, “YOU! Put your blinker on, put your blinker

on . . .”

Circling each other while slapping, chanting and shuffle hopping, we were like two woozy dogs with six legs between us. Hackles were visible and raised. My opponent had age and experience on her side, however, and eventually, I retreated to the neutral territory of the restroom, where I splashed water on my face and checked for multiple personalities. It’s possible that the bad me frightened a security guard and confused some cashiers.

Later, I realized that a security camera had recorded the entire incident. That out there in cyber-verse-land exists a video of me slapping my butt and insulting a nine hundred-year old, Mother Goose look alike.

That’s why I can never run for public office. There’s a video. Just my luck, it’s not a sex video; those things never seem to be a problem for anyone.

     

Beware Attack Ants

I try not to wear maxi skirts; they tend to make me look like I belong to a cult of hippy dwarfs. No disrespect to hippies or Snow White’s buds or cults. Long skirts also tend to wrap around my ankles, hooking my heels in an aggressive and hostile manner.

Long skirts are just this side of death traps, in my opinion.

So if you see me wandering about in a long, heel-hooking skirt, it’s because I’m hiding something.

Two weeks ago, last Sunday I had to wear a maxi skirt to church. I was hiding fire ant pus bites that covered my leg flesh from my ankles to my knees.

Ant pus bites that I received while standing in a ditch next to our street, Kissimmee Park Road. I was standing in the ditch putting a halter on Rosie the Pony that was having a high old time snacking on the bucket of feed I use to trap equine jail breakers.

A bucket of feed that I had set in an enormous fire ant hill, because I was distracted by the wailing of the fire engine that went roaring down our country lane at the exact time of Rosie the Pony’s escape attempt.

A fire ant hill that poured forth enough fire breathing ants to fill the bucket and leap onto Rosie the Pony’s nose and cause her to snort fire ant laden nostril snot onto my person, while their angry ant co-drones raced up my shins to gnaw on my age spots.

Age spots that were soon covered with fire ant pus bites, while Sarah, my daughter-in-law, directed traffic: the fire engine, assorted pickup trucks, the neighbor—come to help, possibly a goat pulling a cart.

Sarah, my daughter-in-law, who hearing my howling yelps for assistance grabbed the bucket filled with fire ants and handed it to Emma, the granddaughter, who thought that Rosie the Pony had been trotting over to say, “Hi, Emma,” when Emma was holding the front gate open for the family van.

Rosie the Pony who had not been trotting over to say, “Hi, Emma,” but to say, more along the lines of,  “Wow, you people are morons,” as she bolted for the sweet, sweet grass of the ditch.

Sweet, sweet grass that hid a gigantic fire ant hill filled to the brim with fire ant pus makers, whose attack required me to have to wear a frumpy skirt to church.

Or as Emma wailed, “Hey, Mom, this bucket is full of fire ants.”

Country Living Lessons Learned:

**Ponies trotting toward an open gate may have ulterior motives.

**The grass is always greener in the ditch.

**Maxi skirts make good cloaking devices in a pinch.

Linda (Beware Attack Ants) Zern