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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 |
| Marriage is about respect. Marriage is about mutual respect and approbation. (Approbation is a fancy word meaning respect and is supposed to impress you with my big word brain—also my ability to use a thesaurus.) Marriage is about laughing in all the right places—respectfully, of course. My problem with the whole respect deal is my husband, Sherwood. He’s a nut. He’s a traveling nut, who might be mildly frightened by big city street vendors. I called my husband in New York City during the big freeze and was shocked when he answered his phone out-of-breath and gasping. He sounded like he was either running from panhandlers, in the middle of being mugged, or dodging pedi-cabs. “What is going on? Are you being mugged? Say ‘uncle’ if you are.” “No. I’ve . . . (sounds of gasping) . . . just been . . . (tearing cough) running down Madison Avenue.” “What? Is it the street vendors? I know how you hate those guys. Are they after you? Say ‘cheap crap’ if they are.” “No, no . . . (sounds of fifty year old lungs trying to expand) . . . I just thought I knew where my work conference was being held—but it turns out I don’t, and it’s like a minus three degrees around here. No self-respecting mugger would come out in this weather.” “Oh my gosh . . . people are freezing to death up there, while walking their dogs to make yellow snow.” I knew it was entirely possible that my husband was wearing the equivalent of a windbreaker in single digit cold. “You’re going to die. Do you have a hat?” “No.” “Gloves?” “No.” “A scarf?” “I looked for a scarf before I left Florida. Does that count?” “Have you found your ears? When you find your ears, we’ll discuss the impact of good intentions on a blizzard.” I had a vague memory of Sherwood pawing through my underwear drawer looking for a blue scarf he had owned—TEN YEARS BEFORE in another state, possibly another universe. I remember telling him, “Honey, don’t you remember we used that scarf to tie a towel on a shepherd’s head for the Christmas pageant? That thing is long gone, probably one of those three kings absconded with it.” He tried to reassure me. “After I left my hotel, I walked for a couple of blocks and thought, ‘Hey, this isn’t too bad. I’m okay.’ And then I thought, ‘Oh no! What happened to my ears?’” “Honey, that means they fell off. Your ears are off. Check. Look around on the ground.” He ignored me. “And then,” he said, “I saw a woman with a scarf the size of a blanket wrapped around her head, and I thought seriously about snatching it and running for it. You know like on Seinfeld.” “Babe, Jerry snatched a loaf of bread, not survival gear,” I said, firmly. “Now listen carefully, I want you to look for the steam coming up from the underground through the grates and head for those. You may need to roll some homeless folks around—homeless folks that, by the way, will probably be more appropriately dressed for the cold than you are.” “I’m way ahead of you. I’ve been running from grate to grate; that’s why I’m breathing like this.” I ignored him. “And, you’re not going to want to hear this next bit, but you’re going to have to BUY yourself a hat and what not—to stay alive, which is the opposite of dying.” He groaned. “But there’s no where around here to get anything, nothing, no where.” My worry turned to confusion then to suspicion and finally to frustration. “I thought you said you were in New York City. Madison Avenue—the pulsing heartbeat of the world’s pacemaker for commercialism, right? That Madison Avenue?” “Un huh.” “Buy yourself a scarf! Before you die! Find a street vendor! Find a guy that opens his trench coat and says, ‘Want to buy an electric blanket or maybe a blow torch?’” I spent the rest of the day afraid to watch cable news for fear that I’d see my husband scuttling like a hermit crab looking for a better fitting shell along the streets of New York City. The news anchors would be pointing at him, mocking, and saying, “That guy is going to die.” Respect in a marriage is a funny thing. I know it makes me laugh quite a bit. I’m just wondering where Sherwood is going to prop his glasses, what with his ears falling off and all. Linda (Bundle Up) Zern |
| We’re about to welcome our twelfth grandchild to the world and into our family, thus making it official. We’re a tribe. Which is a shocking development when it becomes evident how incredibly young and adorable my husband and I are. But what can you do? He’s crazy about me, and we’re crazy about our kids, and they’re crazy about their spouses, and we’re all crazy about those kids. The crazy escalates when I tell you that our oldest grandchild is eleven. Do the math. Sunday dinners at our house are a raucous, lively affair resembling a frat house party without the alcohol poisoning. Or as my husband once remarked after an evening of visiting with our daughter’s rowdy five, “There’s nudity, sword fighting, jousting, and mud wrestling. It’s like visiting a medieval bar.” Fun. That’s what it is. But we’re not a bunch of whiny, prissy, don’t-be-too-loud, or mess-up-the-house types. We like jousting. We find jousting fun and . . . joyous. As grandparents we bring love and applause to the table. And Zoe, Emma, Conner, Kipling, Sadie, Zachary, Reagan, Griffin, Hero, Scout, Leidy, and the newest of the new in August bring a sense of wonder back into our lives that we weren’t even aware had slipped away a bit over the course of our serious, sensible, self-absorbed adulthoods. When Zoe, our first grandchild, was newly hatched and still dazzled by . . . well . . . everything, her father carried her to their car one evening after a visit. She was so young she didn’t even have serious hair. It stuck out in spikes and whirls. Her vocabulary consisted of a handful of single word commands: drink, more, please. She was little. That night, she looked up at the glittering night sky and added another word to her childish vocabulary. She pointed up and said in a breathless whisper, “Wow.” Everyone stopped. We looked up and saw again for the first time in a long time what she saw. She was pointing to the whistling wind in the thrashing treetops, under a sky dripping with star shine and moon glow, and it was completely and totally—wow. And we were reminded to be dazzled. That’s what they bring to the table: wonder, delight, and wow—also sword fighting. How sad that so many grownups these days have been told to be afraid to share their lives with the next generation, worried, perhaps, that all the jousting might knock over the crystal or muss the table settings. Linda (Dazzle Me) Zern |
| From the top of the “mountain” in our backyard, a dump truck load of lovely white sand, the grand boys asked, “Can we get water in buckets and make cement, YaYa?” I sighed, seeing into the future as surely as any prophetess of future doom. Knowing the end from the beginning, I said, “Yes . . but . . . if you turn on the water to make cement, don’t be shocked when your clothes get all wet.” Denials poured out of their grubby heads. “No. No. We won’t get wet. We won’t. We won’t. We can’t.” I cut them off. “Tut. Tut. Tut. And when your clothes get all wet and icky, and they will, you will be cold.” I held up one finger, stopping any more silly protests. “And when you get cold you will be tempted to take off your wet, nasty, gross clothes. Eventually, you will, in face, strip down. You will then be naked. When you strip down, please be advised that I do not have a sufficient amount of backup super hero underwear to cover your nakedness.” They looked like they wanted to say something stupid. I continued. “Furthermore when you turn up cold, wet, and naked—and you will—other people (i.e. everyone) will point and remark on your lack of clothing and common sense. This will hurt your feelings, depress your spirits, and possibly tumble you into a cycle of low self-esteem and despair, leaving you vulnerable to becoming a basement dwelling liberal arts major.” “Can we make cement?” they chorused. “Sure,” I said. I went back to reading my book, sitting in the sun, and being right all the time. Linda (Seer Stone) Zern |
| Sometimes I feel like I was raised in the Twilight Zone and graduated to the Night Gallery. It’s a writer’s curse, living with an excess of imagination. All trouble is big trouble, or what’s the point? Like last Wednesday or was it Monday or . . . You remember. It was a dark and stormy night. Because I am not quite eighty years old and my insides are starting to quite possibly, liquefy, I get up in the dark of the night to visit parts of the house that are not my bedroom to dispense liquids. Okay, I had to wee. On the dark and stormy night in question, I had just toddled back to bed, tucked myself away, and started to drift off when I heard something—something other than the moan of raccoons as they arm-wrestle each other over leftover gristle in the trashcans. Instead, it sounded like raccoons using a walkie-talkie, and it was weird. Under the covers I tensed. Had I heard a raccoon walkie-talkie? Or was hearing walkie-talkie noises a symptom of my liquefying brain? I bolted upright in bed and cocked my head to the side like a curious poodle. I listened harder. Dark wind whipped. Stormy rain slashed. I heard another new sound. It was eerie, mechanical, and tinny. Honestly, it made me think of the Star Ship Enterprise transporter or a trash compactor. I scrabbled through my sheets for my cell phone. Flinging myself from the bed, I jammed into the corner next to the open window. Branches scraped against glass. Greasy raccoon fingerprints glinted on the window in a flash of lightning. Wind banged the hedge that needed trimming. Clutching my cell phone, I crouched—smaller, tighter, more. Outside, a radio voice crackled in the night: thieves or space aliens or creeper bandits mumbled. It was impossible to make out their evil plot. Whispering, I said to no one, “Man oh man, the thieves are getting sophisticated if they’re using walkie-talkies.” The weirdo space noise came again. I wedged harder into the corner. My finger hovered over the nine on my phone. I muttered, “This is it, killed by walkie-talkie toting super alien creeper villains or raccoons.” Suddenly, softly, another possibility came to me. Chagrined, I stood up, turned off the phone, shut the window, and crawled back into bed. In the morning, I wandered outside to where my two-year old grandson’s “Mighty Midget Spider Man’s Ride and Push” was parked and turned it off. Spider Man’s tinny voice chirped and faded. What? It could have been walkie-talkie toting super alien creeper villains—any writer with half an imagination knows that. Linda (Big Ears) Zern |
| We moved to a state I hated some years ago. It had north in the title for a reason. I survived the snow and ice by floating in a steaming garden tub like a lily pad and writing emails describing my garden tub lifestyle. In the beginning, I sent my emails to a couple of friends and some relatives. One of those relatives sent an email back and said, “Quit sending me these damn silly emails.” That’s when I knew I was on to something. My mission statement became: Block This! Over the years the email list grew and grew. Then MySpace was invented and someone said that I should get hip and get a Space that was mine, but I heard that MySpace was just a bunch of teenagers hiding out from their parents and complaining. Sure. Sure. I complained a lot in my emails, but I tried to keep it highbrow grousing and not ‘he said, she said’ whining. I mean . . . I wrote about real problems like Japanese beetle infestations and cabin fever crimes of passion. Then someone said that I should have a website, write a book, run some ads, and cash in. “Even the terrorists have websites,” they said. I looked at my computer, flipped it on and then flipped it off and thought, “I need to find some terrorists to help me get a website.” Three years later, I fired my IT staff (my computer analyzing husband) and tracked down a do-it-yourself website for making websites. Then I was told that I should have a blog, since weekly emails sent to a trillion people really qualified as spam. Groaning, I went into blog mode. Too late. By the time I was blogging the mere mention of the words blog or blogging made people hunker down inside their hoodies and pretend to be reading their texts or looking at Bonsai kittens grown in bottles. Okay. Now it’s Twitter and Instagramming and Linked In and Createspace and Smashwords and . . . everything needs to be connected to your dazzling hand held Fancy Phone and . . . I traded in my old obsolete phone for a new dazzle phone and the lovely young man at the Fancy Phone Hut checked my data and said, “Well, you have ten catrillion super bytes available to you, and you’re using ONE.” He snickered. My IT staff (my computer analyzing husband) laughed right out loud. I fired him again. But I keep right on writing those “damn silly emails,” once and twice a week for sixteen years, and navigating every single learning curve thrown at me by technology and the Internet. Why? Because talking to myself gets old; that’s why. Linda (Block On) Zern |
| “What’s happened to The Globe Trotters, allowing women to play?” I looked over at the man in the bed next to me, wondering if he was aware that it was fifteen years into the 21st century, and decided to look up the meaning of the word curmudgeon. I don’t remember everything the online dictionary said, but I do remember the words grouchy, negative, and man. He shouted, “There’s no way one pill can do all that!” He shook his fist at the television. “You know that yelling at the television is a sign, right?” I said to my husband of thirty-plus years. He popped a fistful of Vienna fingers into his mouth. “A sign of what?” “Being a curmudgeon: negative, grumpy, excessively critical of stuff, old.” “Harrrumph!” I snuggled into the ten to twenty pillows propping me up in our bed as a voice-over declared that the Eggstracker egg peeling machine would CHANGE MY LIFE, freeing me from the horrors of having to peel eggs by hand. I shot straight up in bed, as alert as a coonhound spotting a treed raccoon and shouted, “That is bull bark! Seriously, I don’t think my egg peeling woes are keeping the world from turning for me. What freaking nonsense.” I pointed an arthritic finger at the smiling woman happily pumping out perfectly peeled eggs with her Eggstracker. “Darn straight,” my husband said as crumbs tumbled onto his chest. That’s when I knew. We’d become Waldorf and Statler—two curmudgeonly old puppets from the Muppet Show. When had it happened? How had it happened? And why had we sunk to the level of grumpy puppets? It’s the bed. After watching John Adams, the HBO mini-series, I felt inspired to drape our four-poster bed with curtains that can be drawn closed, effectively shutting out light, air, drafts, and the world. Then I bought a pillow top mattress that at full price cost as much as a used golf cart. We got the mattress on sale, after a markdown, on closeout. It was almost free, but dang, it’s a good mattress. And finally I bought a night-light that I ridged up to a pocket that holds the remotes, phones, tablets, and chewable fiber meds. Or as Zoe (age 10) said, “Wow, if I had that light and stuff on my bed I’d read all night.” That’s when I knew. We’d become puppets, unable to move without sticks up our . . . fluffy stuffed puppet hands and stuck in the cushion of our pillow topped Muppet stage. What? Grumpy shouting at television personalities that can’t hear us is our culture. It’s our way. And if you don’t respect it, it’s because you’re a diversity hating, ethnocentric, culture crushing prig. And you probably hate puppets and puppies and John Adams. So remember, curmudgeons are people too—old man people, possibly their wives also. Linda (The One on the Right) Zern |
| When the cashier asked me, “Did you find everything okay?” I said, “Sure, yeah, great! I found the toilet seat, dog dip, fire ant killer, and gas can—just great. I would be beside myself with shopping joy IF IT WASN’T FOR YOUR DERANGED BUGGIES!” Then she called security. Here in the south we call them buggies. If you’re a Yankee you may call them carts, and if you’re from England, you call them trolleys—which is just bizarre. There are three types of buggies at Walmart: the ones that pull—to the left or the right, the ones that vibrate like the Space Shuttle during liftoff, and the ones that seize up on you, because it suspects that you are homeless and looking for a spare bedroom. I watched my husband yank, pull, push, sway, and rock a Walmart buggy for seventeen minutes one day when we crossed the invisible buggy alert line. It froze up. He went berserk. “It’s frozen,” I said. He yanked. “The buggy thinks that you’re homeless,” I explained. He tipped, then rocked, and then shook--all over. “Face it; we’re going to have to carry eighty pounds of groceries from here to way out there.” I pointed. It was hard to see our vehicle. It was Christmas time. He growled. The vibrator buggies are often easy to spot. These buggies are often abandoned at various points around the mega-store, due to the hideous clank, clank, clank noise they emit, and the tremors that travel up through the one wheel that is flapping free. That clanking noise travels through the handle, into the bones of your forearm, and finally into your temples—like an ice pick. Occasionally, a small child will also be abandoned with the buggy. It’s a decoy. Don’t fall for it. When you go to assist the child, its mother will attempt to steal your buggy and collect the kid later at the lost and found. The pullers are the worst. Hard to spot and apparently impossible to fix these buggies appear serviceable, but by the time you reach the detergent you will be nearing a state of exhaustion. The exhaustion stems from the constant over compensating you will be forced to do to keep your buggy from drifting into the buggy with the infant in it on your left or the woman in the hover-round on your right. Tip: The more groceries in a puller the worse it pulls, and if a puller buggy gets away from you in the parking lot there may be no stopping it. Like a suicide bomber it will throw itself into the nearest and newest car in the parking lot. Chasing after a runaway cart, screaming, is highly ineffective. Trust me on this. Then there are the perfect buggies. The ones that neither pull, nor drift, nor rattle, nor seize up. A pleasure to push and a joy to load up, these buggies just roll along like a corny song, until you hit a bump and your eggs fall out onto the parking lot, but don’t break, and they (the eggs) go rolling—but not in a straight line, because unbroken eggs can’t roll in a straight line—every where, they roll just every where, and because the eggs didn’t break you feel that you should catch them, because they’re still good. Right? I mean you could still make brownies with them (if you cooked that is) and so you go running wildly through the parking lot chasing eggs, trying to get all your eggs in one basket, but in the end there’s no way that you’re going to crawl underneath that van dripping bio-hazards where three of your eggs have rolled, because there are things that you’ll do for brownies and then there are things that you won’t do, and that’s life. Sometimes life pulls to the right or left, leaving you exhausted and sometimes it vibrates and shatters your eardrums. Sometimes life locks up on you, thinking that you’re someone else entirely, and sometimes life is just right--then the eggs fall out and roll away under a van. Linda (Trolley Girl) Zern |
| According to one of those online dictionaries that defines weirdo sayings and expressions like ‘selfie’ or ‘awesome sauce’ the phrase ‘humble pie’ means: to have to apologize and/or face HUMILIATION and originated from the dish "umbles pie" which peasants ate in medieval times (umbles are the innards of deer/cow/boar/whatever else was lying around). Pig guts. That sounds about right. Facing humiliation is one of the skills I list on my resume. It has been my observation over a lifetime of humble pie eating that as soon as I start thinking that I am ‘all that and a bag of chips’ one of my new cherry red Steve Madden stilettos falls in the toilet and I have to fish it out with a body part not covered with a glove. NOTE: The phrase ‘all that and a bag of chips’ is a silly jumble of words meaning that I feel like I look pretty darn good in my cherry red Steve Madden stilettos, and I can eat a bag of chips and not gain weight. And that’s how it went last Sunday while I was teaching my Sunday school class. They’re called Sunbeams. They’re four-years-old. They love me, mostly because I always bring snacks and I own a lot of puppets. I love them back, mostly because they remind me that there is still hope in the world. I am a rocking four-year-old Sunday school teacher. I thought. Last Sunday, in the spirit of Merry and Christmas, I brought my Fisher Price nativity set to class. We spent time setting up the manger, Mary and Joseph, the ever popular baby Jesus, the animals, the little wishing well, and the cat. The cat is so popular that it tends to get tucked away in little pockets and stolen, but that’s an object lesson for another time. We had a blast, setting, arranging, and pretending. Standing over the neatly displayed crèche scene, I said something profound and wise and teacherly to my Sunbeams. Something like, “And that children is why we should be kind and loving and . . .” Not checking behind me, I went to sit down in my teeny, tiny four-year-old chair. It wasn’t there. I hit the ground butt first, collapsing onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. And finishing my sentence, I said, “. . . we should try to be more like Jesus.” I glanced into the face of a cherubic little boy. He smiled at me and said, “I moved your chair, Sissa [Sister] Zern.” “Yes. I see that.” I stayed where I’d landed on the floor for a few more minutes, splayed out like the Wicked Witch when that house fell on her and spent a few moments eating humble pie with a side serving of awesome sauce. Linda (Yum-Yum) Zern |
| 1. Unto Cindy Lou I do write the happenings of our tribe in the year two thousand and fourteen and do speak somewhat of that which tickeleth the bone that is funny. And do say unto thee through Cindy Lou, trust not the guy whose heart is three sizes too small. He stealeth thy stuff. 2. Neither give heed to that which everyone else doth do, for they followeth strange fads and turneth aside unto vain janglings. 3. But yet remain strong in that which giveth joy and bringeth giggles. 4. Be like unto Kipling (age 6) which dideth go with his mother and siblings to the doctor and did worrieth that he would be given a shot. The stress of which did causeth him to have gas and toot much. When the nurse did entereth the room she declared, “Shew. Who dideth fart?” 5. And Kip did speak forth, saying, “Me. I’m the nervous kid in the room.” 6. And he did speaketh the truth and did holdeth nothing back, being honest in his dealings with his fellow man. And thus we see that to speak the truth is often most funny and beloved of all. 7. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation. 8. And the young and impressionable in our tribe did likewise speak often of the world and its doings, finding delight and wonder in the wagging of the world and who doth way it. 9. Or as it was said by Zoe (age 10) when in science club she did observeth salt dancing under the influence of percussion and music to form most intricate and dazzling of patterns, “I’m speechless.” 10. Also be like unto Emma (age 9) who beginneth all and every sentence with a much used phrase, it being, “Did you know . . .” And she doth have the knowing of many things, yea, almost all things. 11. Then there is the example of one Conner (age 8); who doth struggle much in his reading but doth set for all a fine brightness of hope when he saith, “It is my destiny to learn to read.” 12. And also there being one Sadie (age 6) who delighteth in the sun, and moon, and stars; who bringeth gifts of rocks to me that sparkleth with much quartz, wanting much to study the glitter she doth find in the earth. 13. And Zachary and Reagan hath learned much in their going to pre-school, mostly that Indians did creepeth and did eateth much of turkey with those known as Pilgrims. And Reagan did complaineth, “I tired of turkey songs.” 14. This is a true saying, that Griffin, whom they still calleth Gummy, and Hero, who loveth horses much, and Scout, known for her much climbing, did all grow in stature and wisdom and their parents did yet looketh forth to that day without diapers. 15. And in a day that is not yet, but soon, there would yet come another infant to our tribe and her name would be known on the records of our church: Leidy Hazel Lorance both for her great-grandfather and her great-grandmother and we did look forward to the day of her coming. 16. These things I write unto thee to show that our tribe doth still prosper and grow; that the song we sing hath both the secret of our love and the secret of our happiness contained therein, in that we do believe our purpose and mission is to inviteth others to our family and to ‘help [them] and others on their way.’ And this is that which doth make our lives a marvelous work and a wonder to us. And we do rejoice and wish all a most pleasant journey and much blessed Christmas. |
| Thirty-plus years ago, my high school sweetheart and I got married. We were young and dumb. So young and so dumb that the memory of this life altering decision has the power to cause my husband to have semi-faux panic attacks—usually in the shower. Afterwards, he stands in the bedroom wrapped in a damp towel and yells, “What were we thinking?” “Not much!” I respond. It might be easy to think that life has been a smooth sail on an endless pond of Jell-O for a couple of high school sweethearts like the two of us. Not so much. Luckily, in the beginning we didn’t own luggage, and it was too embarrassing to get ticked off and leave while dragging plastic garbage bags. It looked pretty stupid to have to haul your junk out of the house in black plastic garbage bags. Sometimes poverty and a lack of luggage are blessings in disguise. Bottom line, my high school sweetheart can still make me want to stuff black plastic garbage bags full of my shoes and makeup and drive to the state line. And just recently he made me revert all the way back to a primitive state I like to call: Barbarella Viking Bride. I was so angry . . . About what? Not important. Never is. I was so angry that I walked into my kitchen, felt my fingers curl around the satisfying curve of a fresh-from-the-hen-house egg, and chucked it as hard as I could into the sink. It was an egg bomb. I found shards of that egg in invisible nooks and crannies for three days—not to mention my eyebrows. Mostly, I found egg dripping down my face. I, literally, had egg on my face. But instead of being embarrassed or ashamed or self-conscious, I reached up and with two fingers drew parallel lines down both my cheeks and across my forehead in the yellow yolk of rage. In the split second it takes to heave an egg, I had become one with my Viking ancestor’s state of primal berserk, wearing the war paint of sticky gick. Staring at my fearsome visage, I thought about getting more eggs and egging the truck, burning down the mailbox, or ransacking an abbey. Then I realized that I’d just have to clean all that mess up, so I washed my face, picked egg shell out of my hair, and pulled the veneer of civilization back over my head like a waterproof poncho. Still mad, I did the worst civilized thing I could think of: I went to the store and bought orange juice with LOTS of pulp in it. My husband hates pulpy orange juice. He swilled it down just to spite me. He can be a bit of a Viking berserker himself. That’s the problem with civilization and civilized behavior; it can be a mighty thin veneer at times—as thin as an eggshell. Linda (Shield Maiden) Zern |
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