Color Me Skeptical

The Internet is a marvelous work and a wonder. Except when it’s not.

On one of the websites where I post my writing, people occasionally chime in, sound off, make comments, and post responses. These people do not identify themselves with their given names. They use online names or aliases such as “Hello Kitty Hat Hair” or “Dolphin Dew Dipper.” They often say complimentary and encouraging things about my writing.

The problem is that I’m never sure if these people are real.

I mean, it would be one thing if somebody with a name . . . oh . . . I don’t know . . . maybe, a name like Ray Bradbury commented on my recent essay about chupachabras by saying, “Nicely shaped paragraphs” or “lovely sentence length” or “good use of the article ‘the.’”

Note:  Yes, I know that my writing idol, Ray Bradbury, is dead. But still, how cool would that have been?

Ray Bradbury would be one thing but when Dolphin Dew Dipper sends me a note saying, “You’re funnier than a monkey sitting on a power pole that may or may not be a chupacabra—the monkey, not the pole,” I tend to wonder if Dolphin Dew Dipper isn’t a Ukrainian chick trying to hack my computer in an attempt to get to my sensitive vital statistics.

Or, that Dolphin Dew Dipper isn’t really my husband trying to get to my sensitive undercarriage—also vital statistics.

I want to believe that people saying nice things are real. I do.

But what if Dolphin Dew Dipper is really homeland security, because the word chupacabra is a codeword meaning ‘dirty bomb transport ship arriving from Pissport Nowhere?’ The subtext of which is, “Round her up, boys.”

Or what if Dolphin Dew Dipper is my mortal, sworn enemy come back from my too trusting past to taunt me with manipulative, faux praise designed to soften me up for that Ukrainian hacker chick?

See my problem? 

The Internet is a marvelous work and a wonder. Except when it isn’t. Who knows if anyone is who they say they is/are/was/were/am?

But this much I do know. I know who I am, and that I really am who I am when I say that I am that. Even if sometimes I’m less of who I wish I was and more of what I could be, except when I’m not.

Count on it.

Linda (Zippity) Zern

Face the Tale

Family Fairy Tales

Who knows how these stories begin? 

Someone mumbles something under his or her breath at Sunday dinner. Someone else gets bored and kicks the first someone under the table. There is mocking. Insults are traded, and before you can ask, “Is there going to be pudding?” a random mumble has become a favorite family fairy tale shrouded in adjectives and dolled up with frilly adverbs.

These are the stories that become part of the collective family experience or as we like to say,  “Raise your hand if you think dad really saw a monkey sitting on a light pole next to Interstate-4.”

At the curve in the exit from the turnpike onto I-4, near the Millennial Mall, close to The Holy Land Experience, my husband swears he saw “something” sitting on top of one of the thirty-foot tall industrial light poles, looking at him.

“Did you see that?”

I remember he sounded breathless and breathy.

“What? That hopeless snarl of urban petroleum fueled congestion snaking through the labyrinth of cement jungle that resembles a concrete purgatory.”

I am a country girl. Cities make me itch.

“No, on top of that light pole. Something sitting, with a face. Like maybe a squirrel. It looked at me.”

I glanced over at the giant light poles lining the road.

“That would be some squirrel.  Are you sure you saw a squirrel? Why would a squirrel shimmy up a pole like that? I mean, what’s up there that a squirrel would want?”

Traffic ground to a halt. We were on I-4, after all. I tried to imagine a squirrel with the kind of ambition required to sit on a pole, watching backed up traffic on the interstate.

My husband seemed unhappy with my interpretation of events.

“I said,” he began,  “‘Like a squirrel.’ It had a face!”

He was starting to sound miffed.

“Babe, squirrels have faces, not big ones but eyes and stuff, sure. Faces absolutely.”

 “Bigger. It was looking at me. It had a face. A big face.”

I squinted at the poles. They still looked really tall and smooth and hard to climb to the top of.

“Maybe it was a monkey,” I offered.  “Monkey’s have faces. And they’d be able to climb up a pole like that.”

“A monkey! From where?  Monkey town?”

Now, I was getting miffed. Then I pointed.

“From over there, those apartments behind the mall. Someone’s monkey got away. Climbed up a pole . . .”

He made a rude noise. I doubled down on my theory.

“And looked at you, with its face. Maybe it flew up there, because it’s a winged monkey.”

 “People in those apartments cannot afford a monkey. Now you’re just making fun. ”

“No, if I said that I thought it was a chupacabra face looking at you from the top of a thirty foot light pole, that would be making fun. And how do you know those people cannot afford a monkey? Maybe they found a monkey. You’re a snob.”

“It had a face and looked at me.”

I made a rude noise.

At Sunday dinner that week, I said, “So, Dad saw a winged monkey with a chupacabra face, sitting on top of one of the light poles next to I-4. Discuss.”

And that’s how a family fairytale begins and grows and takes on a face of its own.

Linda (Plain and Small) Zern

 

Revenge of the Fallen

"No! Not in my desk chair. Out!"

It was a once in a lifetime, dream-come-true cliché—a hunting trip for the men in our family through the wilds of Texas. It was a rugged, manly exercise in the production of testosterone. There were guns. There were animals sporting massive branching horns on their skulls. There were pop tarts. It was man heaven.

Disclaimer: Unlike a bunch of city folks raised on Disney and PBS, we are country people. We know that ducks don’t wear pants, that ‘possums have the most teeth of any mammal on earth, and that given a chance, a Bald Eagle will carry off your pure bred puppy to feed to its chicks—piece by bloody piece. Mother Nature is a b . . . booger. Hunting is what animals do to animals, and if my biology teachers are right, well, then we’re animals. Right?

Sherwood went hunting with Aric and Adam in Texas and shot a white stage (a kind of elk.) Two hundred pounds of meat came in the mail and went into my freezer. Delicious. Frankly, I’d have eaten the hooves if they’d sent those.

The white stag’s mounted head came in a crate, on a semi—that stopped traffic on our street. The trucker, mumbling something about damage to the crate, insisted on cracking open the box.

“Lady, the last time I saw something like that I was at a ski lodge,” he said.

He wasn’t kidding.

Unfortunately, we don’t own a ski lodge, and it’s been a real challenge finding just the right spot to hang, Attila the White Stag.

“Not there. It’ll poke out the children’s eyes.”

“You cannot hang it there. It’ll breathe down my neck during Sunday dinner.”

“And if you hang it over the fireplace we’ll have to tear down the mantle so the horns don’t hit the roof.”

So now it’s on the wall of our bedroom, staring at me. Or it was.

Until yesterday, when Sherwood stumbling around in the dark looking for his pants, bent down and then stood up, smacking Attila the White Stag right off the wall. 

Attila tumbled down off the wall and stabbed Sherwood in the thumb with his enormous horns.

I heard the unmistakable sounds of white stag violence and husband cussing, and jumped up out of a sound sleep screaming, “Oh no! It’s attacking!”

The screaming escalated—mine!

And that’s how Attila the White Stag continues wreaking revenge, beyond the grave.

Linda (Elk Burgers) Zern