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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 |
| **Bobwhite was a college guy who sat next to me in my creative writing class. The only thing that made Bobwhite the College Guy angry was people who believed in absolutes. He made this declaration with absolute certainty. It was a declaration that made me mildly uncomfortable because I, of course, only believe in “absolutes.” I absolutely believe that certain teenagers who tell you that they are “ready and able” to drive the family van, will, in fact, run that van off the road at fifty-miles per hour through a barbed wire cow fence—at the first available opportunity causing $4,123.13 in damages and an ulcer epidemic among the adults in the family. I absolutely believe that two-year olds, left on the back porch by themselves, when told not to eat the dog food, will eat the dog food after soaking it in the dog’s water. I absolutely believe that college students, who do not pay taxes, car insurance, or their own meal allowances, are excited about the re-distribution of wealth—mostly other people’s. Bobwhite believed that human beings didn’t even know why they did what they did, but after they did it, they try to figure out why they’ve done what they did, so they’ll know stuff about why they do what they did for future doings. I don’t pretend to understand that sentence. He also believed that human beings are motivated to do what they do by chemicals, genetics, and reality television. He also believed (with no apparent historical precedent) that the future looked brighter than the past, because of all the information available on-line, of course. If we can just stuff enough information into people, they will not want to rip-off the old folks pension plans. I remain skeptical—also menopausal. I believe that thieves with a lot of education are just educated thieves or politicians. Bobwhite’s basic premise was that human beings without education or Google Earth have no ability to exhibit will power or self-control above that of the average poodle. Wanting to put his theory to the test, I asked him, “Do you mean to tell me that if I get the urge to smash your head in with a brick, it won’t be my fault, but a combination of menopausal hormones, urban blight, and Irish angst.” Bobwhite said, “Exactly.” When I get into these deep philosophical discussions at school the other students sit in a semi-circle starring at me to see if I will stroke out. Turning to the semi-circle of my fellow students, I said, “Girls, go get me a brick. I want to test out Bobwhite’s theory.” They laughed. I was serious. Oh, those college kids are so adorable, but they’ve got a lot to learn. It’s true that the two-year old will eat the dog food, but she won’t eat it forever. It’s also true that teenagers shouldn’t be allowed to drive until they’ve joined the Army or the Peace Corp. And college kids eventually become taxpayers and want to know, “Who the heck is this FICA guy?” The truest absolute of all is that the fuzzy thinking of the young and freshly educated will sharpen right up as soon as someone they are closely related to decides it’s a hilarious idea to drive around town with a fake bomb in the trunk of the family car. Linda (Absolutely Me) Zern ** Name has been changed because I am not an absolute dweeb. |
| We are country folk. Walking to the mailbox takes longer than a football halftime. Mowing the “lawn” is a commitment. Assorted animals have raucous sex in plain view and without shame. And NOTHING smells like it was whipped up in a Johnson and Johnson laboratory to smell like pumpkin spice and applesauce. As country folk, we recognize that the “real” world stinks. Literally. FACT: There is no deodorant big enough for Mother Nature. “What is that stench?” I said to absolutely no one, while sucking air through my teeth because the hairs in my nose were sizzling. Sunlight jittered. A light, calm breeze heavy with hell’s foul breath wafted. I checked the horses in the barn. They were happily crunching, munching, and tooting their way through life. Pretty standard stink there. Not the source of the truly foul odor that floated across my yard in a toxic cloud. The smell wasn’t coming from Mr. Abe’s, our Moroccan neighbor. The festival of blood . . . er . . . um . . . the festival of Eid was over and everyone had cut their chunks of bloody goat meat out of the trees and dragged them home. FACT: Yes! You read that correctly. My neighbor slaughters dozens of animals twice a year and then hangs them in the trees while everyone from their mosque enjoys a picnic. It’s a cultural treat for the eyes, but there’s less smell than you might think. Another gust of wind gagged me. Not Mr. Abe’s then. The stink was coming from the other neighbor’s house, Mr. Medina: retired former pizza restaurant owner and bare-chested weekend hobby farmer. A Nubian ram, the size of a small pony, lifted his nose to the sky, curled his lip, dropped his head to his side, curled in to himself, and peed on his own face. The smell exploded across two acres of pasture like the stench of an open landfill. It was the filthy musk of a full-grown boy goat in raging, snorting . . . rut . . . er . . . lust . . . um . . . love . . . WITH A DONKEY. I pinched my nose as I watched the impossible sight of the enormous boy goat leaping after Mr. Medina’s donkey. The donkey, eyes whirling around in his head like pinwheels, ran for his sexual purity. The donkey brayed. The goat pranced. Goat smell continued to choke me. Then, if that wasn’t countrified enough, I gaped as Mr. Medina popped out of his barn door like a cork out of a bottle—broom in hand. He started to chase the goat, chasing the donkey. The trio circled the pasture. I rubbed my eyes and coughed. FACT: Mother Nature is nuts. I thought about helping my neighbor as a good Christian woman should. I didn’t. I was too afraid the goat might start chasing me. I couldn’t risk it. I don’t run that fast. FACT: Mother Nature plays for keeps. I’m not sure what the moral of the story is except to say, “Run hard. Run fast.” Linda (Sniffles) Zern |
| I evolved sarcasm as a protection, the way roses evolved thorns and for basically the same reason—to keep from being devoured by goats. As a kid, I was puny. I was slow. I was knobby. I never did climb that dopey rope. I got sick of being bitten by my kid brother, made fun of by my elementary school peers, and belittled by the marauders of Rose Marie Drive, also known as the neighbor’s kids. So, I learned to use the big, hefty words like Billy clubs. “Those are some big-time words coming out of your knobby mouth, puny girl.” When I failed to grow a spiked dinosaur tail so that I could crush human bones, I honed the venom of the cutting remark. Turns out, I had a knack. I raised sarcasm to a high and lofty weapon. What I lacked in brawn, I made up for in perfectly delivered snidery. My brother later complained that I always “made him feel stupid.” My mother complained that it wasn’t what I said but “how I said it” that made it difficult to be related to me. My sister cried. A lot. But that could have been baby-of-the-family issues. Eventually, I rendered several people unconscious with the savage efficiency of my sarcasm. “Back away, little man, or I will kill you, cook you, eat you, and pick my teeth with your bones,” I would spout. I was five. And they bought it, because it’s all in the delivery: tone, inflection, facial ticks, sneering lip curl, dismissive eyebrow flip. But I worry. It's so hard to convey throughly the depth of a sneering lip curl over and through social media. Don't you think? Which makes this social media/facebooking experience beyond frustrating at times. Those little faces they call emoticons made out of punctuation marks and random dot-dashes, while darling, seem so inadequate when trying to convey the depth of my . . . ummm . . . errrr . . . shock and disdain or surprise and annoyance or disgust and horror or jaw dropping disbelief. For example there just isn't an emoticon for the concept of "mealy-mouthed." As in, that opinion of yours is close to being what we--in the south--like to call "mealy-mouthed." And there certainly isn't a cute little smiley face to symbolize the following sentiment: "Yes, I too believe that absolutely everyone in the whole world is entitled to ride a unicorn to pick up their happy cash from the big money dump truck of joy provided by all the wickedly rich, rich, rich people in Hollywood and Martha’s Vineyard." And finally . . . I need some kind of circle with eyes to mean, "Sure. Sure. Everything you think or say is brilliant, thoughtful, and correct—except when it isn’t.” So be warned. I have thorns. But it’s not all my fault that I’m sharp-thorned harpy, and I’m not really bad. I just evolved this way. Linda (Spike-Tail) Zern |
| My husband is a world traveler. He’s navigated: foreign visas, foreign airports, every continent but one, diverse climates, cuisine, airports, languages, and sewer systems. He’s cool—except when he isn’t. Occasionally, I travel with the world traveler to keep him company and keep him out of airport jail. True story. Coming home from South Korea, I was able to talk him down off a ledge when we landed in the Detroit International Airport only to have to stand in a line that was one hundred and fifty-seven deep, to wait for TWO surly guys to stare at our passports and grunt. Being in Detroit was like being in a foreign country with bad plumbing. My husband, the world traveler, stood in the middle of the endless line of weary, slightly smelly, fellow world travelers and said, “This is %&^*ed up.” Really loud. I remember because my eyebrows hit my hairline with a thud. My husband does not curse—ever—even for a good joke. On a recent trip to Washington, DC for our thirty-plus year anniversary, my husband, the world traveler, navigated security, dashed through check points, yanked out ID like a guy with a cable show on the travel channel and dragged me along like a slightly larger version of a cat in a cat carrier. We were savvy travelers. We were savvy travelers, right up to the point when he whipped out our airline tickets from his front shirt pocket and a binky tumbled out. I looked down at the lonely pacifier on the nasty airport terminal floor and said, “Babe, is that your binky?” We looked down and stared. The binky looked lonely and familiar all at the same time. The ultra cool world traveler said, “Yeah.” He looked around. “Doesn’t look like it belongs to anyone else.” We were surrounded by ultra cool, world traveler types; they were checking their email and Facebook updates. A hamster could have fallen out of his pocket and no one would have noticed. “It’s Gummy’s,” he said. “Do you think that kid’s ever going to be called by his given name?” I vaguely remembered liking our youngest grandson’s real name. I just couldn’t remember what it was. “Nope. He’s the baby.” He picked up the binky and tucked it back in his pocket. We traveled on. One of the important lessons I’ve learned over the past three decades is that just about the time that you think you’ve reached a state of super cool, world traveler status you lose your binky right there in front of everybody. It’s like writing a story about achieving the state of “cool” and realizing you’ve spelled cool with a ‘K.’ Linda (Suck on This) Zern |
| I was sixteen. He was seventeen and had his hat in his hands—literally. It was a welding hat from shop class. For those of a younger generation, shop class was a high school class dedicated to the idea that not everyone had to be a lawyer to be happy, healthy, and wise. The boy with his hat in his hands asked me to the homecoming dance. I went. We’ve been together ever since, making us high school sweethearts. Or as I like to tell the youth in my church, “I waited for him and he waited for me, and it doesn’t get more romantic than that.” For thirty-six married years, plus three dating years, equaling thirty-nine total years, it’s been smooth sailing, low stress, and baby bunnies in Easter baskets every step of the rainbow giggling way. Sure. Sure. What? It happens to be true that big, fat lies are all the rage right now. A couple of consequences of being together for such an extended period of time are the evolution of flexible attitudes, the development of various coping strategies, and the use of guns over knives when fist fighting. For example, in the beginning, we argued. Now, we banter. Banter is arguing with the sharp edges knocked off. Recently, we bantered our way through the new self-checkout register at our local Walmart. It was trial by barcode scanner. “Okay, I’ll scan and you bag.” I held up a giant bag of Halloween candy corn. “Scan, Baby, scan,” Sherwood chanted. I swiped the bag of candy and Sherwood stuffed the bag into a bag and straight into our buggy. The machine immediately suspected shoplifting and seized up. “I think you’ve got to let it sit in the ‘bagging area’ so that it knows you’re not stuffing candy corn in your pants.” “Why would I stuff candy corn in my pants? I hate candy corn.” “The computer doesn’t know that.” I swiped a giant bag of Kit Kat candy bars across the scanner. He stuffed the Kit Kats in a plastic bag. The machine seized up and declared, “Unauthorized item in bagging area.” “I haven’t put anything, unauthorized or not, in the bagging area.” “Did you think about putting something unauthorized in the bagging area?” “Are you kidding? How would the machine know what I’m thinking?” I looked up. “Drones?” An assorted flock of small, pooping birds swept by, over my head—possibly drones—hard to tell. “Wait for assistance!” The machine commanded. We waited. A cashier, approximately the same age as my socks, assisted us. Tap, tap, tap, swipe, and tap. “Okay,” she said. I tried to scan a head of lettuce. Nothing happened. The machine suspected shoplifting and seized up. “Here,” I said. “Put this head of lettuce in your pants.” Once upon a time, my cavalier jokester attitude, the fact that the line of grumpy shoppers behind us was piling up fifty deep, and our obvious lack of check-out acumen or savvy would have sent my husband into orbit, and I would have trailed behind him like a kite string. But now? Now we understand that ninety-eight percent of life is complete daffiness—so yuck it up, baby, and bring on the banter. While we waited for teenage assistance to arrive and to make us feel super stupid, my husband pretended to stuff the head of lettuce into his pants. I snorted through my nose. Then he took two lemons and . . . well, never mind what he did with the lemons. I’ve known him for thirty-nine years, and there’s no one I would rather banter with—no one. Linda (Lemonade) Zern |
| From my walk-in closet I pulled a pair of my highest, sharpest stilettos and strapped them on. “Why are you putting on high heels?” asked Sherwood, my husband of thirty- plus years. “Because we’re going into battle. I pulled a suit jacket over my yellow knit top. “It’s pretty hot for a jacket. Don’t you think?” “Sherwood, dear man, nothing says, ‘I want my money back ‘ like sharp, pointy shoes and a Liz Claiborne suit jacket.” I checked my makeup and threw a mock pink crocodile hobo bag over my bony shoulder. “Let’s go.” This was war. And I was not going to lose. We crammed the defective four hundred and sixty dollar (two year extended warranty included) Hewlet Packard Officejet Pro scanner, printer, fax, and copier machine into the truck. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, I had purchased the new copy machine with cold, hard, American credit to replace the old copy machine that had been blown to toast by lightning—while I happened to be standing next to it. The replacement Hewlet Packard Officejet Pro scanner, printer, fax, and copier fresh out of the box—did not work. It didn’t pretend to work. So, back it had to go because I make a lot of copies of stuff—my writing, my sketches, coloring pages for grandchildren, my last will and testament. “Give me the keys. I’ll drive.” I snapped my fingers. “Slow down, General Patton. I’m driving,” Sherwood said, holding the keys over my head. He didn’t have to hold them very high. Sherwood drove. I fumed and prepared my opening salvo. The girl snapping her gum, standing underneath the Customer Service sign, did not have a chance. “Hi, my name is Linda Zern,” I said, “and I’m not a happy customer.” The gum snapper snapped to attention, eyes widening. I did not slow down. “Yesterday, I bought a four hundred and sixty dollar copy machine for my business, and it does not work, not even a little bit. Now I know that this unfortunate turn of events is not your fault, or my fault, or the fault of some poor slave chained to a factory wall in China, cranking out copier machines by the billions. The machine does not work. I find this situation beyond frustrating, and I want no silliness from this fine establishment. Do you understand? Now, what do you plan to do for me?” Her hand trembled as she pointed toward the back of the store. “Just leave the bad one and go get a new one,” she said. I spun on my pointy heels. When I found a young man lurking in the copier aisle, I said, “Young man, this it the situation: I purchased a moderately expensive copy machine, and it is defective. Now I know that this is not your fault, or my fault, or the fault of some poor slave chained to a factory wall in China, however I still want one that works. I am not happy. Furthermore, I can’t seem to find another copier machine to replace the piece of junk I purchased in good faith from this store only yesterday. What can you do for me?” His hand trembled as he pushed a very large ladder to a top shelf where a stack of very heavy HP Officejet Pros waited. I noticed Sherwood’s frown. “You think I’m being too hard on the troops.” It was not a question. “I think you’re being testy.” With raised eyebrows I asked the young man, now bent double under my replacement copier, “My husband thinks that I’m being testy. What do you think?” His hand trembling increased as he steadied the huge box. “I think that you are a person who wants what she paid for.” “Excellent answer, young man, proceed.” He lumbered towards customer service. “Do you think that he’s afraid of me?” I asked my husband. “I’m afraid of you.” “Good.” I marched to customer service, my stilettos tapping a determined rhythm. Without a word, the gum snapper made the switch and handed me a receipt. “Young lady, I want to thank you for not making me have to mud wrestle you over this exchange.” She cracked a lip glossed smile. “And if I were you I would say your prayers that this machine is not also defective.” She crossed herself. We left. The copier is perfect. I give all the credit to my shoes. Nothing says, ‘Don’t mess with me or my feet’ like a pair of sharp, pointy shoes. I know the truth. Any woman who is prepared to endure the pain, discomfort, and unnatural spinal position that high heels require will not hesitate to fling herself over a customer service desk and throttle the teenager running the cash register. It’s like having two rottweilers on your feet. I love my high heels—also they make me taller. So, tip of the week, if you want action don’t wear flip-flops. Linda (I have hammer toes older than you!) Zern |
| “There’s something in the office with us,” my husband said. His still, small whisper carried across his desk to my side of the office. “Define something.” I didn’t bother to look up from my computer. “As in some living thing—in this room, with us.” His tone made me pause. “How do you know?” “Because the rug under my desk is breathing.” And it was. Breathing. There at his feet under the area rug was a small hump—breathing. It was a small, breathing hump. I was stumped. Then I remembered. “Oh sorry, darn, I meant to tell you earlier that the cat had some thing in here earlier, messing with it. Sorry again. My bad. Should have mentioned it.” The hump shivered. Later, after recovering and tossing a rotund, slightly traumatized mole out of his office, my husband observed, “I’m not sure that I can stand all this nature. It’s starting to keep me up at nights. Did you hear that racket in the garage the other night? About one in the morning?” I shrugged. I guess he’d forgotten how fast I forget stuff. “You didn’t hear the banging!” he said, shocked. I shrugged again. “It was a possum, inside the garage, too blind to see to see that the garage door was shut. So, it just kept bonking into the garage door—over and over and over again. I had to let the possum out of the garage like it was a pet or something.” “We don’t have a pet possum.” He rolled his eyes. “I know that.” I didn’t think that this would be a good time to tell him about the fox squirrel (a giant mutant squirrel capable of hauling bricks around) that I had spotted stealing landscaping cloth from our garden. It took us hours to roll out that stupid landscaping cloth. That mutant fox squirrel was ripping up huge hunks of the stuff, balling it up, and carting it off to his mutant squirrel condo in the sky. I guess to re-carpet or something. And I didn’t bother to mention that a psycho cardinal (a red bird on crack) that had been attacking his own reflection in the rearview mirror of my truck, had now graduated to attacking his own reflection in our bedroom window right around naptime—mine! Tap. Tap. Tap. Tappity tap. “Hey, you idiot bird, you’re trying to peck out your own eyes!” I may have screamed once or twice. The good news—the bird wasn’t pooping all over the truck any more. The bad news—the bird was now pooping all over the house. So that’s country living. It takes a strong constitution, a hefty work ethic, and an appreciation for nature in all its cracked craziness. Linda (Nature Girl) Zern |
| When I proudly handed a copy of my first children’s chapter book to my sister-in-law, she took it, looked at it, and said, “That’s a lot of writing.” She was not overly enthusiastic. When I started sending funny, little, quirky emails to friends and family sixteen years ago (before blogging, before vlogging, before posting) another close relative said, “And stop sending me those damn silly emails.” He was less than encouraging. Rejection comes in all flavors. Yet . . . I write on and on and on. Sixteen hundred words a day or as much as my line editor can safely edit without losing her mind. Over the years, I have learned a couple of tricks and tips and techniques. Here are five. 1) Women Only or Overly Meaty Men: Write braless: There is nothing worse than writing for sixteen hundred words worth and then realizing that your boobs have turned blue from lack of oxygenated blood. It’ll throw you off. Trust me. 2) Thesaurus – Yes or No: That’s a big yes. My professor said to throw the thesaurus out. Whatever. I’m pretty sure that no one knows all the synonyms for the word “heave.” Editors get testy when you use the same word for stuff over and over again. So, if you need another word for heaved in the following sentence, “Her bosom heaved,” with a thesaurus you could write: Her bosom surged. Her bosom billowed. Her bosom huffed. See? How handy is that? 3) Snack With Caution: Writers live at their keyboards. Potato grease in sour cream & onion chip dust can make the computer keys slick. Bad things can happen when your fingers slide around. Words like shoot and shot can come out in the wrong spots. That’s my theory. Poorly executed grammar, creepy spelling errors, upside down word choices, and dazzling typos are ALL due to slippery chip grease fingertip trouble. True story. True chronicle. True fiction. 4) Handling Massive Rejection: Eat more chips. Type more words. Tell more stories. 5) Why Write? Because one day your ten-year-old granddaughter will hand you a story she’s written just for you about pumpkin seed fairies, and she’ll say, “When I grow up, I want to be a writer just like you, YaYa.” What I like best about being a writer and dreaming of having a wildly successful book, novel, tome, or opus (thesaurus alert) is that there can never be too many good ones. Good books are like potato chips; you can never stop with just one. Linda (Keyboard) Zern |
| Mark Twain said that American humor differed from humor in other countries. In England they told stories about something funny that had happened. “Oh look! The Lord of the Manor lost his pantaloons.” Or something else equally hilarious. But Americans, he contended, could tell any story and make it funny. “Oh look! The Lord of the Manor lost his pantaloons. Hey aren’t those Lady Bluebell’s pantaloons, and aren’t they pink? I have a pair just like them.” My personal favorite form of humor is called self-deprecating. “Humor in which performers target themselves and their foibles or misfortunes for comic effect.” Essentially, these are people who can laugh at themselves. It’s adorable. It’s charming. It’s smart. It’s mature. It’s confident. It’s down right sexy. And it’s the kind of humor where you can use the word foible. What’s not to love? People who can laugh at themselves are highly intelligent. It’s a scientific fact. Probably. Sure. Sure. I bet there’s a governmental study costing ten trillion taxpayer dollars proving it—or not. Probably. Okay, let me illustrate: I was born when tinfoil on the rabbit ears was high tech and Jiffy-Pop was kitchen magic. The 21st century has been a bit of a challenge for me. Oh, who am I kidding? I still think that if I open the computer I’ll see typewriter keys. This backwater attitude amuses my children, causing them to push and nag and drag me into the world of multi-media or, as I like to put it, multi thorns in my side to make me wish I was eating Jiffy-Pop popcorn while watching Laugh-In. But I digress. So, in I jump: Facebook, Goodreads, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked-In, Writing.com, Writing.net, Writing. Dumbbunny, and my very own website. Even though, the learning curve on each has caused me stress, hot flashes, nose bleeds, and happiness leakage. But, in I jumped. Recently, I contracted a common cold viruses better known as the Vlad the Impaler Snot Fest. I was bed ridden for two weeks and weakly for two more weeks after that. It allowed me to be quite active on my Facebook page. Okay, I updated my status every time I sneezed and wet my pants—it was a lot. And my children (grown) MADE FUN OF ME for over posting, or as Adam put it, “I like the post that said her pneumonia had contracted influenza.” I never said that. I said that I couldn’t smell, hear, taste, or breathe and that all hope was lost and that they should save themselves. Leave the casserole on the doorstep. Oh wait. There weren’t any casseroles from my children. This story is an example of self-deprecating humor. Foibles alluded to include: My age, my dopiness, my bad children, my lack of tech savvy, and the wetting of my pants or pantaloons, depending. Linda (A Little to the Right) Zern |
| Shirley Jackson, one of my favorite authors, wrote stories so scary they inspired Stephen King. She also wrote funny stuff about her family. How can that be? Because Shirley Jackson was one smart dame, that’s why. Or as one of my professors told me, “Literature deals with the heart; humor deals with the intellect.” Thus we see: Smart people know what’s funny. Kind of. Most of the time. Sure. Sure. I write funny stuff. That’s what people tell me. I’m often stunned when people tell me this, because when I’m writing the funny stuff I’m never laughing. Mostly, I’m steamed or annoyed or moody or itchy. I’ve actually been at parties where I was introduced as “that funny lady who writes funny stuff.” After which people stared at me—waiting—for me to break into my standup routine, I guess. Sorry. Don’t have a standup routine. All I have is my life. Funny. You bet. Unfortunately, a lot of modern humor falls into the category of “bathos” or “low comedy.” This type of humor often deals with excrement, sex, farting, or being drunk enough to include all of the above. My husband, a guy I laugh with and at quite a bit, found me one day pounding away at my laptop. He said, “What’cha writing.” “I’m determined to win this national humor writing contest I’m always entering. I’ve been second in the nation. I’ve been honorably mentioned. I’ve been a semi-finalist. But I’ve never won.” “Why?” “Because I don’t drink.” “What are you talking about?” “A lot of the winning stories have to do with getting drunk, staying drunk, anticipating being drunk, or mocking the drunken.” “But you don’t drink.” “Yeah, but I’ve been around a lot of little boys who can fart the alphabet. I bet I can fake it.” He left me to it. I watched a romantic comedy the other day that relied quite heavily on bathos for its comedic comedy. One of the gags included the clogging of various toilets by an unwanted houseguest. Bathos = excrement. All I could think was, “Who’s going to clean that up?” I did not laugh. One of my kids (who shall remain nameless so I won’t have to pay her a dollar every time I use her name) decided pooping was too gross and she was not going to do it anymore. She was above pooping. She was three. And a real pip. For two weeks she was good for it. The problem with the no-poop challenge is the human body. Not only did this kid poop, she pooped constantly—just not a lot. Think buffalo head nickel size spots, times 1,000. It was disgusting. Finally, concerned that the kid was about to explode, I stripped her naked, stuck her on the baby potty, stuck a box of prunes in one hand, and a cup of prune juice in the other and said, “Don’t get up until you take a dump.” What came out of that kid was . . . beyond description and not the least bit funny. The best part of this story is that she now has a kid of her own that’s pulling the same crap about pooping. Bathos = excrement. Humor is tricky, and I’m always surprised by what people find funny. It’s never what I think it’s going to be. I have another grown kid who laughs every single time you say the word, “Poop.” She has the soul of a little boy who can fart the alphabet. Linda (Humor Writer and Thrill Seeker) Zern |
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