The Case for Continued Hunkering After Hurricane Season

The saddest part of the end of hurricane season is the cessation of the use of the word hunker.

What a fabulous word and society only cracks it out and dusts it off when a soul-crushing, city-destroying hurricane is on its way. That's unfortunate. Very few words stand up to the word hunker in both multiple uses and varied meanings.

I've told the story before of the 'possum we found after it had crawled, crept, snuck into our garage only to stuff itself into the underside of a grandkid's riding toy. The 'possum was waiting for night to fall so it could stumble over to the cat's food and stuff itself stupid.

Our daughter, a thousand months pregnant, claimed that she'd seen the 'possum wobble into the garage and disappear into the bottom of the Happy Tots Pedal Truck. We didn't believe her. We thought she was drunk on pregnancy hormones. She wasn't.

When my husband tipped over the riding toy, a mammal with approximately ten-thousand teeth, snarled its howdy-do.

That toothy beast had hunkered down inside that riding toy. We poked the toy. We shook it. We rolled it over and over. That 'possum didn't budge. Finally, we had to turn the hose on it to pry it out of there. Soaked, miffed, and wildly uncomfortable the 'possum shuffled off to hunker down under the garden bridge, and that, Dear Readers, is a fine, fine example of what it means to hunker.

When hurricanes threaten, the word hunker flies around like a kid on a pedal truck. Get food, water, batteries, and some food for the cat because life, as you know it, will be like someone with a giant garden hose trying to pry you out of your safe place. The power will fail. Inside will be hotter than outside. Your air will cease to be conditioned. Day will turn to night. You will feel threatened, frightened, and annoyed but hang on tight unless you have a bridge you can scurry off to hunker under for a bit.

Love the word. We should use it for more stuff than killer storms:

Life is hard, but I think I'll hunker down and give it my best.

Hunker down and keep the faith.

Hunkering down, I refused to be offended.

They tried to shake me out of my faith and hope and charity, but I hunkered down.

You can't make me quit because I'm hunkered down like a 'possum stuffed under a garden bridge.

Move along; I'm hunkering down.

Or I'm getting ready for the next swirling monster of wind and rain so that I can hunker down when the storm howls.

Let's keep the hunkering going. That's all I'm saying.

Linda (Playing 'Possum) Zern            

The Lesson of the CRAYON CLOG UP

Starting first grade in Titusville, Florida during the space race of the 1960’s was an exciting time. We were on the cutting edge of the future. Our dads worked at Cape Kennedy. Our moms baked cookies. And we studied the “new” math.

Our fathers beat the Russians to the moon. Our mothers started to go to work and divorce our fathers. And the “new” math meant that most of us never learned our basic math facts.

It was an exciting time.

My elementary school had over a thousand students. We were still using the Dick and Jane reading series, and my teacher was very excited to be able to hand us our very own set of Crayola crayons—basic colors.

We quickly learned that when the principal came into our classroom, there was trouble. Big trouble.

Someone in our class had taken their complimentary crayons into our bathroom and flushed them down the toilet. Anarchy. The toilet backed up; the bathroom was rendered inoperable, and the government issued box of crayons declared a dead loss.

The principal reamed the entire class out. What kind of person abuses their crayons in such an ungrateful way? How does it feel to break the potty? Why would anyone do such a destructive thing? There will be no recess until someone confesses. No one did.

I remember feeling horrible and guilty. Except that I wasn’t. My crayons were tucked safely away in my desk. I know because I checked.

The angry lecture went on and on.

I continued to feel horrible and guilty. Except that I wasn’t.

At a certain point, I began to feel something else. Resentment. I hadn’t thrown my crayons in the potty and flushed. I hadn’t clogged the public toilet. I wasn’t the criminal. Why was I getting punished?

See Jane get miffed. See Dick bristle. See Spot run away in disgust.

I have no idea if the anarchist was ever found out or prosecuted. I only know that punishing the innocent for the criminal behavior of others is—wrong. I learned this in first grade on a sunny day in Florida, when I should have been swinging on the swing set at recess.

Linda (Don’t Tread on Me) Zern

DRAMA QUEEN

Drama Queen

I am a writer and therefore drama runs through my veins like a red tide on the ocean.

I used to think that mysteries would be hard to write because I could never figure out ‘who done it.’ But now, I see that murder mysterious are easy: someone is dead; someone is going to be dead; someone is thinking about making someone dead. Drama. Built in. And readers love it. Mysteries top the Amazon best seller charts every single year.

Which is weird because social media like Facebook is covered in anti-drama memes. “Get rid of the drama in your life. Go on a cruise. Live in a moss-covered cave.”

It’s a crock. Human beings love drama. Our games are full of it. Our entertainment drips with it. Our literature is not literature without it—conflict, opposition, and goals thwarted.

Drama is queen and I, for one, embrace it. A story, even a children’s story, must contain elements of drama and conflict or we are just humming in the dark. Grimm’s Fairy Tales were, in their original forms, cautionary tales designed to warn children and their parents about the inherent dangers in the dank, scary forests of our lives, and we’re still telling the tales. Sure, we’ve watered them down some with show tunes, but we could never imagine Snow White without the poisoned apple.

Drama gets a bad rap, and it shouldn’t.

It’s why I love writing dystopian fiction. The apocalypse drips with drama. And we love it. I love it. Lights go out, electric fails, and we are thrust into the landscape of struggle and survival. And we love it!  Sex is a big deal again. Food is a life and death struggle. Enemies abound. Drama. Cool.

I do have to laugh, though, when I read the constant touting of all women in dystopian literature as strong, kick-A women. I’m not sure that’s true or should be true. Isn’t it more interesting to have a regular woman given to pedicures and migraines who becomes a kick-A woman capable of skinning a cat and then boiling it?

Just a dramatic thought.

But there’s a downside. I am a writer. My kids don’t call me for two days, and I’ve got them dead in a ditch. It’s a professional hazard.

Oh, and by the way, I can imagine skinning a cat. My great-grandmother refused to eat rabbit all her days. Why? Because during the real apocalypse of the Great Depression butchers in Chicago would skin cats, chop off their heads and feet, and sell them as rabbit. My great-grandmother never got over it, and she was as kick-A as they come.

On a Facebook page, followed by writer types, the discussion faded into whether or not writers should kill off pets in their stories or is that too offensive, too harsh for a modern readership? I commented, “I write dystopian books. Bad things happen.”

Chew on that.

So, here we are—to drama or not drama. In my opinion, kick-A women take drama, stick it in a blender, throw in an egg, and then swallow it down like the ‘hair of the dog’ that bit them. Or we read chick-lit, which can be fun too.

Linda (Life is Drama) Zern