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 |  It's who we are. It's what we stare at in the middle of the night. It's a bug zapper. |
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My friends, When we were young and newly hatched—also young and in love—my husband and I lived with our four young children on the Space Coast of Florida. The massive propulsion of rocket and shuttle launches from Cape Kennedy often rocked the windows and doors of our little love cottage. We were always properly respectful and impressed by the reach of mankind’s achievements. It was a point of pride to stop whatever we were doing (dishes, dinner, dancing, sleeping, fist fighting, etc.) to watch the eastern horizon—hands on hearts, tears in eyes—as the United States of America raced into the frontier of space. One deep, dark morning (about 2:00 am) I shook my husband awake to watch yet another triumph of human advancement. “Get up,” I mumbled to Sherwood, “the shuttle’s going up. We gotta’ watch.” Sherwood moaned, “The garbage is out all ready. Let me die.” He did not open his eyes. “Come on. We should watch. Night launches are amazing.” He dragged himself upright and clung to the window ledge behind our bed. We knelt, with our chins braced on the ledge, our bleary eyes fixed on a blazing light in the eastern sky. We watched. The light did not appear to move. We stared some more. The light remain fixed. We struggled to focus. The light blazed away. We waited for the light to fade into the blackness of space. It did not. We watched and watched and watched. The light stubbornly refused to move. At last, collapsing back into my pillow I said, “Honey, go back to sleep.” Sounding confused, miffed, and a little whiney Sherwood asked, “Why?” “Because for the last eight to ten minutes we’ve been staring at our next door neighbor’s bug zapper.” He went back to sleep. And I lived to worship at the altar of space exploration another day. This story pretty much sums up who we are, and how we got this way—excessive staring at bug zappers. And this is my blog, a space-age way of recording one’s thoughts, ideas, embarrassments, and foibles for the entire known world. Once upon a time, I would have made this record on papyrus, rolled it up, stuffed it into a ceramic jar, and asked to have the whole thing buried with me in my sarcophagus. I still might. Disclaimer: Some of the stuff you will read here is true. Some of it is not. Some of it is the result of wishful thinking. Some of it is the result of too much thinking, and some of it is the result of too little thinking. But all of it will be written with joy and laughter, because the alternative is despair and weeping, and isn’t there more than enough of that stuff out there? Thank you for your support, Linda (Zippity the Zapped) Zern |
| Authors and soap makers constantly need reviews and critiques. They need people to read their books or wash with their soap, and then they need those readers/washers to write down and post what they thought of the book or sudsy soap in a public place like Amazon.com. If a writer can get enough readers to rate and review their book on a single special day, the list maker fairies will sit up and take notice. âHey,â the list maker fairies will shout, âLook here! Someone who knows how to post on Amazon has read this book. To the cool book list.â And then other people see the cool book list and say, âHey, whatâs happening here? I want to be cool too and read that book.â I donât know if itâs the same for soap people. I guess it is: soap, suds, rinse, repeat . . . write a review. Itâs possible to review everything from coal tar soap to goat halters on Amazon.com. It can be a lot of fun to say stuff about goat halters. In the interest of encouraging more reviewing of everything from goat halters to fire starters to gummy calcium chews to my newest book, Beyond the Strandline, soon to be launched and thrown into the happy winds of the book judging public, Iâm writing this checklist, âHow to Review Anything.â #1. Go with saying something nice if you can and be specific! Find one to three positive things to say about the soap: nice packaging, good heft, quick delivery. Or about a book: excellent title; snapping dialogue; I wet my pants over the ending. Or about the gummy calcium chews: tasty, gummy, fruityânot chalky at all. #2. Sometimes a quick description is helpful. Like: âThe soap comes in a nice thick black bar and smells like coal tar, but it cleans like Windex for skin.â #3. Constructive criticism is a fine art. Comparing a book to whale dung is neither helpful nor constructive. Extending the criticism to compare a book to the stuff under whale dung isnât helpful, nor constructive, or enlightening. How does a writer improve from the stuff under whale dung to actual whale dung? Thereâs no path to a better way. #4. Be constructive. Try starting the beginning of a review with an upbeat observation. For example: âWhile I enjoyed the strong bones the calcium gummies might give me, the chalk-like texture and flavor which cause my tongue to cleave to the roof of my mouth prohibit me from giving this my highest rating.â #5. If you must be scathing and sometimes you must . . . be brief. All that should be said at times like those, âYikes.â #6. Actually, itâs the rule of threes. Find three strengths or likeable aspects and comment then follow that with three areas that could be improved upon. Itâs rarely that there isnât something happy to say or suggest, although Iâll confess Iâve critiqued papers that Iâve struggled with a bit. Donât underestimate the importance of creative writing. I learned how to review some real stinkers as a mom with teenagers because there were days it was tough to find somethingâanythingâpositive to say about kids who rolled their eyes at me so hard I could heard it. I have been known to say to my grumpy, hostile teenaged offspring, âHey, no one can breathe in or breathe out like you do, kiddo. I was just hoping you might take this pickaxe and clean that fungus bloom out from under your bed.â If I were reviewing this posting I would start by saying to myself, âNice use of the word yikes and chalk-like. The numbers are in the right order. I like the juxtaposition of soap, books, and goat halters.â And then I would add, âOne) Name names: Which kids? What do eye rolls sound like? Any smells youâd like to include? Two) Is everything a joke with you? Get serious once in a whileâor not. Three) Try using more dashes. I like them. And thatâs how to review stuff. Linda (Five Stars) Zern |
| Group work in college is all the rage. It teaches social interaction and village building. The problem with village building is trying to figure out who is going to be the village idiot. And so went my group project for the short story âThe Yellow Wallpaper.â If you are not familiar with the wildly popular and oft used short story âThe Yellow Wallpaperâ let me summarize. Once upon a hateful time, men were dogs who keep their women in rooms with ugly wallpaper. Eventually, the hideous wallpaper makes the women go nuts. Itâs a classic tale of women who cannot figure out where the paint department at the Home Depot is located. Explaining the project to my youngest daughter, I said, âSo, to start, weâve got this guy in the group whoâs going to show a YouTube video that makes you see hallucinations. His name is Marcus.â âDoes Marcus do drugs?â she asked. âOnly in class.â I waved away her concerns. âThe hallucination video represents how the ugly wallpaper makes the helpless woman in the story see stuff creeping around, under, and in the wallpaper.â I scratched the end of my nose and then added, âI donât know what she was worrying about. Iâve seen mildew that could form a kick line.â She shuddered and muttered the word âbleachâ under her breath. âAnd Iâm creating faux nasty wallpaper out of poster board, which Iâm making everyone stare at during the entire presentation except when weâre making them have hallucinations. Josef, the foreign exchange member of the group, is happy about that. He doesnât want anyone looking at him while heâs giving his oral report. I think his student visa has expired.â âWhat village is he from?â âExactly! Anyway then for the big finish weâre going to do an interpretive dance under a yellow bed sheet.â âFitted or flat?â âFlat,â I snapped. âWho would bring a fitted sheet to an interpretive dance? Anyway weâre going to take turns running around under the sheet like the crazy people the woman sees creeping behind that butt ugly wallpaper.â She frowned and started to say something else, but I kept going. âThen Iâm going to dance last, and after I run around, Iâm going to faint and theyâre going to cover me with the yellow sheet in a solemn, artistic, interpretive dance kind of way.â I twirled for effect. She sighed and asked, âMom, have you ever thought about just trying to blend inâfor once?â âGosh no! Because then The Man would win!â I pumped my clenched fist at the ceiling. I donât know who this guy is that they call The Man, but all the college kids in my group talk about him like they know him personally. Mike brought a fitted sheet for the dance. It never occurred to me to tell Mike to bring the flat one. Ever try to cram seven members of a group under a clingy, elasticized sheet? Thatâs modern education: group projects, interpretive dancing, and âThe Yellow Wallpaper,â a short story that youâll study ten to twenty-three times, until you figure out that the village idiot might not know the difference between a fitted and a flat sheet. Linda (Sheet Dancing Queen) Zern |
| By way of introduction, my husband, Sherwood, and I have racked up a fairly impressive list of most embarrassing moments over the past thirty plus years of marriage. Note: Yes, that is his real name. There was the time that Sherwood ran out of gas in the line for the drive-through window of McDonaldâs, and he had to push the car up to the âpick-upâ window. Then there was the knee surgery/sodium Pentothal fiasco when my husband had a little trouble coming âout of general anesthesiaâ and told the nurses in the recovery room that he had four wives and thirty-seven children and a really HUGE . . . um . . . er . . . REASON for all those wives. Talk about Big Love. Then there was the bubble gum stuck on the hairy buttocks incidentâalso the manly man. The mistake is to assume that once those children are potty trained and the hubbyâs knee rehab is over, that it is really and finally over. And by it, I mean embarrassment. It's never over. Ever. If anything, the relentless march of age just makes for a lot of fun opportunities to be total bags of gas and droopy body parts. Now, âmost embarrassingâ has become a competition, and Iâm thinking Iâve taken the lead. From a recent phone call confessional: âBoy, did I have an embarrassing moment today at work,â he confessed without preamble. Not shocked, I asked, âNow what?â âWell, I got up from my desk to greet some co-workers, and when I stood up I just let fly with a giant . . .â Cutting him off, I yelped, âWhat!?â âYou know.â I did know, but I didn't want to know. Not really. "No, what? You let fly with a groan, moan, sigh . . . what?â I paused and embraced the noxious truth. With slow drip horror, I said, âYou. Did. Not!â âYep! Right there in my cubicle.â âDid anyone say anything?â âNope. But their faces said it all; it was so embarrassing.â Silence descended over our conversation like a helium balloon filled with methane. âWell,â I said, at last. âI think Iâve got you beat.â âI donât know; that was pretty embarrassing. Iâd never met those people before.â Skepticism mixed with humiliation in his voice. âIâm telling you; Iâve got you beat.â I felt my hand clench tighter around the phone. âOkay. Shoot.â âYou know how on Mondays I clean house in my big old sweatshirt, and I donât wear . . . you know, anything underneath . . .â âRubber gloves?â he asked. âNo! I donât wear, you know . . . foundation.â (Foundation is a Southern word for bra. Itâs a cultural thing.) âAnd youâre not talking about makeup.â âRight.â âSo, I had some stuff I needed to put in one of those plastic snap Rubbermaid containers, you know, those plastic storage things with the lids. The ones that I buy by the truckload from Walmart?â âYes,â he said, but it was a worried âyes.â âOkay, so after I shoved the junk into the plastic thing, and I went to snap the lid closed,â I said, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, âI snapped the end of my . . . self into the container.â Silence. âYou mean, the part of you not wearing foundation." It was not a question. âRoger that,â I sighed. âBut the worst part is that the plastic lid was closer to my waist than my chin when I snapped my . . . self into it.â âWow, bummer. Okay, you win. You now hold the most embarrassing moment prize.â âGee, thanks.â âDonât thank me," he snickered. "Thank Mother Nature.â And so it droops; I mean goes, and so it goes. Iâve never been one to herald âthe dignity of manâ much, because Iâve never found any part of living to be very dignified. Mostly itâs just people pretending that nothing disgusting ever comes out of their noses or other orificesâever. But it does, and we all know it. Not only does disgusting stuff come out of us all the time, sometimes it lingers in the air and wafts over into the cubicle next to you. So hereâs hoping that this week finds you downwind and your droopy bits safe from snappy plastic lids. Note: If you find these references too obscure please email me, and Iâll be happy to tell you that Sherwood farted in front of some clients he had never met, and I snapped my nipple into a Rubbermaid storage container. Linda (Flopsy) Zern |
| As our day (as in âthe day of the dinosaurâ or the âlast daysâ or âThe Days of Our Livesâ) darkens all around us, and the world devolves into a spinning orb of nuttiness, I believe we should actively be looking for signs, omens, and portents. For example, Omen Number One: As I stood on the back porch eating a bowl of Rice Puffy Junk, I froze, spoon halfway to my gaping mouth. Why? Because my neighborâs donkey trotted by, wearing a twelve-foot galvanized gate around its neck. Thatâs why. I knew immediately what I was looking at; an omen, it was a deep, dark, disturbing, donkey wearing gate omen. As most of us know, donkeys are best known for the parts they play in live nativity scenes and political cartoons, and a gate is symbolic for being the place where people hang signs that say happy and inviting things like WarningâAttack Dogs Trained by Germans. Clearly, the omen of a donkey wearing a twelve-foot gate around its neck was trying to prepare me for the invasion of Saint Cloud by German dog trainers. I finished my bowl of Rice Puffy Junk. Omen number two manifested itself in the form of a bird (variety unknown, it all happened pretty fast) that flew into my truckâs side-view mirror. The impact was grisly. I canât talk about it, but it was like an episode of âWives With Knives.â Obviously, this portent was a warning to avoid air travel and eating fried chicken livers. (I love fried chicken livers but a portent is a portent.) The final sign is that my ears have started to flush red and heat up, usually while watching press conferences, man-on-the-street style interviews, and election projections. Iâm pretty sure that hot-ear-syndrome is a sign of possible drone surveillance or apoplexy. Therefore, Iâm stepping up my order of dehydrated green peppers and powdered eggs; clearly weird times are coming when donkeys wear gate necklaces and birds explode willy, nilly. Stay alertâomens, portents, and signs are on the rise. Stay frosty out there; weâre all in strung out shape. Linda (Chicken Liver) Zern |
| Kids When Little Canât Say Things Good So Much Two doors down from us there is a rental property, or as I like to say, âPeople come and go so quickly there.â One of the groups that quickly went from said rental property left behind five (count âem) five cats, who immediately began to starve. I started feeding them. I had to feed them because 1) they were starving and 2) they started ripping holes in my window screens, trying to get into my house so they could eat my soft parts while I slept. I was scared. We have a cat. She came with our house. We call her Condi, and she is known around here as the âgoodâ kitty. She does not give birth to flesh eating offspring. The five flesh eating abandoned cats are referred to as the âbadâ kitties. Itâs a fairly simple set up: Condi, good kitty; all other cats, bad. When Conner was two years old, he became the self-appointed âbad kittyâ spotter. He took a lot of pride in his work. They could run, but they couldnât hide. The problem is that Conner couldnât say things good so much. When he spotted a flesh eater, lurking in the hedges, he would shout at the top of his lungs, âBad titty! Bad titty. YaYa, bad titty!â Luckily we live in the country and our neighbors have moved. Connerâs brand new brother, at the time, was named Kipling, but if you asked Conner he would tell you that the babyâs name was Dip. While cutely troublesome, these examples do not even begin to compare to our oldest granddaughterâs struggles in learning English. Zoe, as small girl, was a real frog lover. Unfortunately, when she would spot a frog, sense a frogâs nearness, or locate the plush version of a frog in a store she would scream at the top of her adorable potty mouthed toddler lungs, âF- - -!â A word that rhymes with luck. My daughter and I would say, âYes, Dear, thatâs a F-R-O-G,â sounding out and spelling the word slowly and completely, also at the top of our lungs. Repeatedly. By the end of November, my husband and I will have thirteen grandchildrenâeleven and under. Our cup runneth over and spillety out with kids who say the darndest things, mostly with four letters. What fun. Linda (Potty Talk) Zern |
| Itâs a tire swing: rubber, rope, and physics. Okay, itâs a tire swing cleverly designed to look like a rubbery horse swinging from a tree branch. Itâs cute. Itâs clever. Itâs intended to suck in credit card wielding grandmothers like a snake swallowing frogs. It works. I bought one. I made the Poppy hang it in the big tree out back. He did. We waited for grandchildren to arrive and be dazzled. Theyâre dazzled all right, but mostly, the toddler-aged swingers just throw themselves in the dirt and scream their guts out while waiting their turn because of two fatal flaws. The rubber horse swing only fits one chubby toddler at a time. You can jam two of them on if you squish them in tight, and theyâre feeling magnanimous, but it swings higher and faster if THEY TAKE TURNS. The other fatal flaw? A collection of exhausted parents who tend to collapse into lawn chairs, slipping into partial comasâin my backyard, under the live oak, assembled in a circle, on the weekends. Theyâre a real sedentary bunch. Not long ago . . . Parents vegetated. Children demanded. The horse swing sat idle. Parents ignored. Children grew shriller. The horse swing beckoned. Someone cursed. Children lined up. The horse swing twirled. Parents pushed. Kid shrieked with joyâone, single kid shrieked with joy. Many others screamed with impatient rage, thrashing in the dirt and worms. Lazy adult shouted, âIâm cutting that swing down. Somebody give me a knife. Anybody.â âThe swing stays,â I shouted back. The swing swayed back and forth. âBut that devil swing is the epicenter of all things temper tantrum. I hate that horrible thing. Letâs burn it down.â âThe swing stays,â I insisted. Toddlers rolled and kicked and moaned, while the lucky swinger giggled. Other parental types picked up pitchforks and torches and howled, âLetâs get it.â I threw myself into the path of the rampaging villagers. âChop the tree down,â they foamed. âDig up the stump. Kill all its roots. Sow the acres with salt. Arrrrrggg.â âItâs not the horse swingâs fault, you dolts, or the tree or the stump or the acorn that made the tree. TEACH YOUR CHILDREN HOW TO WAIT THEIR TURN AND SHARE. THE SWING STAYS.â It was a good speech. No one argued. The swing stayed. Sooner or later theyâll learn, I thought. The parents, I mean; theyâll learn. Swing now. Naps later. And before you can blink that swing will hang lonely and forgotten, and weâll want the babies back. Linda (Charge It) Zern |
| I married my high school sweetheart. My husband married his high school sweetheart. Which means that we married each other. It also means that we went to high school together. He followed me around for all of my sophomore year. I had no idea. Back then it was called âkind of cute.â Today itâs called stalking. After the stalking phase, we actually took a class togetherâsome kind of writing class, I canât remember what it was calledâWord Mongering, Essays Anyone Can Understand, How to BS Your Way Through the Rest of your Life, something. The first thing our public school teacher told us was that no one in that class, not one of us, was college material. I believed her. Iâm not sure if Sherwood cared enough to believe her. I think he was still mildly stalking me at this point. The second thing our public school teacher said left most of us shocked and shaken. âI can smell plagiarism. And I mean smell it, not to mention recognize it when I see it,â she said, fixing her plagiarism-detecting eyes on us as she looked down her plagiarism-sniffing nose at us. She repeated her plagiarism spotting abilities, many times. We trembled. Okay, I trembled. Sherwood was checking out my Sweet Honesty t-shirt. I went home and sweated over our first writing assignment, two pages of âsomething that interests you,â every word mine, every thought from me, every sentence coming out of my head. What was my paper about? I have no idea. But I know one thing, IT WAS MY ORIGINAL WORK. Sherwood went home cracked open the Funk and Wagnallâs Encyclopedia and copied one of the articlesâWORD FOR WORDâstraight out of the book. I remember what his TOTALLY FAKE essay was aboutâThe Boston Freaking Marathon. We handed in our papers to the fake paper-sniffing teacher. Okay, letâs recap. I wrote a totally original essay. Sherwood cheated like a guy selling fake Gucciâs in New York City. Sherwood the Cheater made . . . wait for it . . . an A, with âVery Interesting!â written across the top of that fake paper like a going out of business banner. My paper? I made . . . wait for it . . . a C . . . for chump. Later, he had the effronteryâhowâs that word for a C for chump writerâto claim that he didnât copy the article word for word. He left out words like written by and see reference. I admit; it was a little discouraging, but I got over it and had the effrontery to finally go to college and keep right on writing. I also married the boy, but I encouraged him to pursue a career in computers rather than wordsmithing. Linda (Tattle Tale) Zern |
| In Byron Kerns Survival School, Granddaughter Zoe (age 11) and I (age creaky) learned a thing or two about surviving: collecting water, making fire, constructing shelter and, of course, learning the meaning of STOP. STOP: Sit, Think, Observe, and Plan. Itâs what you do when youâve lost your mind in the wilderness or . . . Walmart. We collected. We made. We constructed. We learned. That was the first day. Then we collapsed in our tent to sleep, surrounded by a cloud of fireflies, the rustling of Mother Nature, and the soft cloak of night. Zoe needed both pillows. I flip-flopped on my brand new self-inflating air mattress. We said a little pray that should rain fall, it fall straight and gentle. Click. We turned off our headlamps. Instantly, I felt the scurry of tiny legs up my arm. Panic threatened to suck the oxygen out of my lungs, and I felt an overwhelming urge to run screaming into the underbrushâin my scanties. But Iâm a trained junior survivalist. I knew what to do. I needed to STOP. I needed to SIT, but I was already lying down, so I had to adapt. I bolted to an upright position. âZoe, Zoe, get a flashlight. I THINK thereâs a tick on my arm.â I was way ahead of my training; I was already THINKing. Zoe flipped on the flashlight. It was time to OBSERVE. âShoot! I canât see a thing. Help me find my glasses.â The black blot on my arm appeared to jiggle in the wavering light of the flashlight. My heart trip hammered. Zoe, as steady a trail buddy as anyone can ask for, handed me the glasses, steadied the flashlight, and joined me in OBSERVING. âYep. Thatâs a tick,â she said. âOkay, hereâs the PLAN,â I sputtered. âIâm going to kill this sucker with a knife.â She handed me her pocketknife. It wasnât the best plan, but it was sincere. I continued to feel creepy-crawly for the rest of our survival course, on the ride home, and later at my in-lawâs sixtieth anniversary party. I had lobster ravioli. At the end of dinner I whispered to my husband that I really needed to get home; I was pretty tired and still a little creepy-crawly. Sherwood, ever the engineer, cut straight to the heart of the matter and announced, âWell, we need to get going. I need to check Linda for ticks.â Smiling, I added, âHeâll probably need to use a headlamp.â And thatâs why weâll be married for sixty years. Who else would have us? Linda (Ticked Off) Zern |
| The sound of crayons being digested slowly crackled in the background, and the smell of rubber nipples was tangible through the phone. âYou have to come with me,â the voice said. âYeah, okay sure.â I made a wild guess and assumed I was speaking to my oldest daughter, Heather, who needed me to go somewhere with her to do something. âWhere, when, and why?â âThe Doctorâs. Monday. Because I took the kids with me to vote and people kept glaring at me and mumbling the word âbabysitterâ like a voodoo curse.â âHowâd the kids do?â âGreat, I threatened them with death and told them if they were loud theyâd get thrown out. They wanted to know if we were going to the library.â âOkay then, a trip to the doctorâs office on Monday, you and the gang.â âAnd Mom, weâre all getting flu shots . . .â Click. By the time we barreled the double stroller past the elevators and into the doctorâs office, the only kid not suspicious was Zachary (aged three months.) Zachary was busy doing his baby lemur impression. Conner (aged four) was the first to formulate a theory. âI hate shots. I will try [cry].â Zoe (aged six) smelled a rat with a hypodermic. Zoe had dressed herself in an orange ball cap, rainbow knee socks, purple striped skirt and matching shirt, fuzzy boots, and green messenger bag. Itâs hard to get one over on Zoe. âAre we getting a shot today, Mom?â Heather wrestled Kip (aged two) out of his clothes for his physical and said, âYep!â And the plotting began. Conner talked me into taking him to the potty, which he claimed was not the ârightâ potty and that he needed another potty, presumably by the elevators or Atlanta. I stood in the hallway arguing with a four-year old. âConner Iâm pretty sure that is a potty; I recognize a toilet when I see one.â Connerâs doctor walked by and said, âThatâs the restroom, lady. Careful, you may have a runner; I predict heâs going for a high speed escape.â âWhatâs escape mean?â Conner asked. âIt means to run away.â âLetâs try that, YaYa.â Zoe suggested we turn the lights out and stay really quiet. Conner crawled into the diaper bag compartment of the stroller and started to eat pretzels and babble. Zoe climbed under a chair and attached herself to it like a limpet. Kip spun himself in circles until he fell over. The baby drifted off to sleep in the middle of flu shot hysteria. âSee why you needed to come with us?â Yep. We talked Conner into being brave by telling him that Uncle Aric, who is a soldier, gets shots all the time. In fact, heâs had so many shots heâs going to be the only one in our family who survives the influenza zombie apocalypse. True fact. We did not tell Conner that bit. Heather tried to pry Zoe out from under the chair, but sheâd already started to secrete a hard coral shell. I went in for the capture, but Zoe kicked me with her fuzzy boots and sent me rolling across the floor like a brittle marble. It took two large bodied nurses, one YaYa, and her mom to get her flu free. She screamed her head off and acted like an idiot. Conner got to play computer games with Poppy for being brave. When Zoe wanted to know why she didnât get to go play video games too, her mother said, âBecause you screamed your head off, acted like an idiot, and you kicked people with your fuzzy boots.â Zoe countered with, âI was screaming for my life.â Man oh man, thereâs a lot of that going around. I hope itâs not catching. Linda (Flu Shot Approved) Zern |
| Nudity. Wild demonstrations of testosterone fueled rooster crowing. Uncontrolled eating, drinking, and merry making. Occasional incontinence. Unadvised physical feats of leaping about, followed by crying, screaming and a high probability of projectile vomiting. Episodes of naked gyrating. Spring break? Youâd think so but no. Itâs a weekend with the grandkids. Many in society look on the nude, naked, uncontrolled, incontinent merry making of spring break as a right of passage for college types and a few convicted felonsâincognito. They look back on their own nude/naked incontinent merry making with fondness, when they can remember it; sometimes itâs just flashbacks. Which is confusing to me. When youâre a twenty-year-old frat boy, itâs cool to poop your pants. When youâre a two-year-old baby boy, itâs disgusting. It makes no sense. I watch the wild, raucous spring breakers on television, and think that if I saw my nearly adult kid swilling alcohol through a tube, I would stop payment on the checks immediately. Let them pay for their own emergency room bill and penicillin. Then I watch the endless, tireless efforts of my grandchildren learning to walk, and think to myself, âNow that deserves our investment.â They cling to furniture, fingers, and their own hands. It gives them courage. They teeter on uncertain legs. They totter trying to manage wobbly first steps. Then they fall. And fall. And fall. They are under no influence but their own, dogged persistence. Over and over and over and again . . . they fall . . . and get back up. And then they GET BACK UP and try it all over again until they can walk. Itâs quite inspiring to watch. They never quit. Never. Over and over and over again . . . until they can walk. Of course, our society calls having children âa punishmentâ or a âtwenty year life sentenceâ or says of them that âthey ruin a womenâs bodyâ or âthey keep you from doing stuffâ like traveling to Panama City for spring break where you wind up unconscious on someone elseâs beach covered in starfish. I guess. Of course, when those children, whoâve ruined your body and punished you with their presence, are twenty you can send them to poop on someone elseâs beach. Irony. Itâs everywhere. Linda (Spring Fling) Zern |
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