A QUICKY - POSTINGS THAT ARE SHORT AND SWEET

SPACE COAST BOOK LOVERS BOOK SIGNING * JUNE 2017
THE AUTHOR WITH HER PERSONAL ASSISTANT.

I Spy Naked

My favorite fairy tale of all time is The Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s continually timely. It’s satirically poignant. It’s completely dead on. The problem is that so many people are walking around naked these days, convinced that they’re fully clothed I get tired of yelling, “Hey, Dude, get your money back. You’re naked. And it’s not ‘good naked.’” 

The fairy tale is about a couple of tailors trained in the fancy school of slick talkers. The tailors offer to make the emperor a suit of clothes like none other. They can’t. No worries. They convince the dope they have, in fact, made the next hot thing in fashion, sort of like an invisible man romper or a see-through leisure suit.

Peer pressure and personal agenda keep the adults silent as the jiggle bottomed NAKED emperor marches through the street. Sure. Sure. Wonderful. Great suit. Looks classy. Nice jiggle stuff. Excellent colored bits of cloth flapping in the breeze.

Adults are toads—in the story.

Only one kid has the bad manners, to tell the truth. Love that kid. Where is that kid? We could use her these days.

I’d put that kid in charge of everything. 

“Hey! Lady! Was that tattoo of Tweety Bird supposed to look like a saggy vulture?” The kid would point and say on a regular basis.

In a bathroom, I eavesdropped on the following conversation.

“So you have a tattoo?” asked a sweet, young thing, washing her hands.

“Yeah, on my boob. It’s a Tweety Bird.” Tattoo girl continued to wash her hands. 

“Cool. I want to get one.”

“I wouldn’t.” Plastic gears churned as they pulled paper towels free. 

“Why?”

“Tweety looked great when I first got it, but then I got pregnant, and now it looks like sh$*!”

Both girls nodded their heads in companionable agreement. 

Moral of the story? If you’re going to walk around dressed in cellophane clothes and saggy vultures, don’t be shocked when some bright young thing points at you and says, “Gross!”

Thank you, bright young thing. I’m with you.

Linda (Retina Burn) Zern

Down on the Farm, Way Down

Consider this another disclaimer. 

If you're going to come to a farm, you're going to see animals in their natural state. If you're going to read about a farm you're going to read about animals in their natural state: Be warned!

Our neighbor, Mr. M, has goats. We have goats. Fences separate our goats. Sometimes the goats actually pay attention to the fences and stay where they're supposed to stay, but in the spring . . . all bets are off. It's spring after all.

Because in the spring a young buck's heart turns to love or . . . how to say this genteelly . . . er . . . um . . . oh forget it! Humping! Their hearts turn to humping and fences are for jumping.

We have a buck goat. He's seven feet tall when he stands on his hind legs. He has devil eyes and jacked up horns. Grown men are frightened of him. He's a complete sweetheart. His name is Tramp. Tramp's companion goat, wife's name is Eleven. 

Mr. M has a buck goat, a little, snorty, aggressive, headbutting sex monster. We'll call him Pest.

One fresh spring day I heard the grandchildren sounding the alarm. Screams echoed from the pasture lands.

"Goats. Goats! There are goats everywhere."

True. There were goats everywhere. Led by Pest the buck goat, Mr. M's goats had jumped the fence and invaded our Tramp's territory. Massive headbutting began, followed by snorting, stiff leg stamping, face peeing and lip curling. 

I should explain. Boy goats are gross. They have scent glands between their horns that reek when they're in rut, and to top it off they pee on their own faces. It's a poor goat's cologne and drives girl goats crazy.

Pest the neighbor's goat jumped one fence, squeezed under a gate, and finally crawled into Tramp and Eleven's pen. And then it got wild.

Eleven ran for her life. Tramp, inspired by all the head butting and urine face ramping ran after Eleven. Pest the Buck ran after Tramp. Everyone had love on the mind. It was a goat threesome. 

Children screamed. The dog barked. I raced after the goats trying to lasso one or all of them. Another neighbor showed up and hollered, "Linda, what have you got going on back here?" My daughter kept hollering, "Why? Why?" and, "What is happening?" Periodically I had to stop and bend over at the waist to laugh manically, and around and 'round we went.

Yesterday, Mr. M, my neighbor, had a kid's birthday party at his house. All the children tramped out to the barnyard to "see" the animals. I heard one bright young man yell, "It's pooping. It's pooping. Everyone look! It's pooping all over the place." What kind of animal was pooping? I have no clue, but they all do it--a lot.

Poor city kids! 

Not only do animals poop and pee, sometimes they pee on their own faces, in addition to jumping fences and going on wild date rape adventures. Be warned! Farm life is real life in its natural state: no pants, no manners, no singing, no dancing, no autograph signing. Be warned!

Linda (Pimp Daddy) Zern