I go to college. I am a student of higher education. I have a book bag from Gap and a map of my college campus, and for seventy dollars per year they let me park in the parking garage.

I pay, no—strike that—my husband pays an exorbitant amount of money for me to go to a private college with an excellent reputation and a parking garage. When I say exorbitant I mean stupid. My husband forks over stupid amounts of money for my education.

Why?

Because I sleep with him.

Oh, you mean—me. Why do I go to college?

I go to college because when I’m done I’ll be able to get a good job working for an evil corporation that will suck my life’s blood out of me like a giant tick, thus turning me into an empty, fluttering sack of desiccated skin stuff, while that very corporation crushes the “average American” under its evil feet like Godzilla stomping Tokyo.

I am an English major. Can you tell?

And thus we come to the crux of the higher education dilemma.

Parents (or in my case, a sugar daddy) spend stupid amounts of money so that students of higher education can go to school where they are told, often and emphatically by famous authors who never GIVE their books away but always take CHECKS OR CASH for their books, that making stupid amounts of money is both greedy and the moral equivalent of beating up five-year olds for their Halloween candy. These same students are then encouraged to graduate, with honors, so they can make stupid amounts of money, which is cool as long as said student donates stupid amounts of that greed money back to their colleges.

It’s called the alumni association.

Higher education is like one of those Chinese thumb traps, where you stick your thumbs in a tube of cheap, brightly colored paper and pull. The harder you pull, the higher your tuition will go.

I’ve fooled everyone and outsmarted the evil Tokyo stomping corporations. I never plan to graduate or get a “real” job.

For thirty years, I’ve listened to folks whine about: their rotten bosses, their rotten jobs, their mind numbing work related responsibilities, their crap salaries, their crap retirement, their idiotic co-workers, and lest we forget—the crap evil corporations which crush us all by importing Chinese thumb traps from China, forcing us to buy them with their clever marketing ploys which they learned how to do by hiring COLLEGE GRADUATES WITH DEGREES IN MARKETING.

End the proliferation of evil corporations now! Don’t go to college! Be a stay at home mom and paint the baseboards! Because that’s as NON-PROFIT as it gets.

Bang a drum in a public park and demand to be paid the same amount of money as, oh let’s go crazy here and say, a lawyer.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, as a student of higher education, it’s that societies can never have too many lawyers or too many drum bangers . . .

. . . or kiosks selling Chinese thumb traps imported from China where they shoot the factory manager when the Ministry of Embarrassment finds out he’s been using cheap, lead based inks and dyes to cut corners and pocket the difference.


Linda (Will Work for Free) Zern












 

It’s a recurring criticism of college life and academia that they don’t represent “real life.” It’s true. They don’t. The mental ballet of the Socratic method of question and answer, the delicate give and take of knowledge given and received, and the glittering fire of minds forever changed are rarely experienced outside the college classroom . . . at . . . oh say, Target.

College is a rare and civilized moment in life, but it is not “real life.” It is a utopian fantasy of what we might wish life could be, might be, if only we didn’t have to get into a sub-compact with bad catalytic converters, pull onto I-4, and commute—anywhere, ever.

However, in defense of the academic experience, I am prepared to discuss in depth what I believe is a little known course of study in “real life” preparation available on your college campus. It’s called Parking Lot, A “Real Life” Prep Course—110.

Parking Lot, A “Real Life” Prep Course is a comprehensive course of study designed to prepare a student for every major “real life” scenario. It’s all out there, in the parking lot—injustice, competition, inequities between socio-economic classes, and of course, hit and run crime. The parking lot at your college campus is a Petri dish of “real life,” and before a student cracks the first classroom door they are out there in the parking lot exploring, experimenting, navigating—getting tickets.

“Real life” is full of bloody, medieval competition—also hemlock.

Competition, defined by the big red dictionary on my desk, is a “striving or vying with another or others for profit, prize, position, or the necessities of life; rivalry.”

The necessities of life include: oxygen, water, ketchup, mustard and a decent parking space within a two-mile radius of Orlando Hall.

Therefore, vying for a parking space is like a daily pop quiz in “real life.”

Out there in the parking lot, cars circle like a swirling flock of vultures waiting for the subtle signs of a retreating vehicle—the glint of a taillight, the subtle shift of a bumper, the erupting blare of thumping music from someone’s trunk, and it’s game on. Seven drivers converge on a single empty space—striving, vying—flipping each other off.

There’s less profanity in a Tarentino film. I can think of few other courses of study that prepare today’s college student for the “real life” Machiavellian maneuvering of the corporate boardroom or the gossipy cesspool of the water cooler than the competition for an exceptional parking space at Rollins College. It’s a student’s best way to get ready for “real.”

Linda (Put Your Blinker On) Zern






 

I walked onto our back porch, caught a whiff of what surely had to be a molting skunk, and started searching for the offending stink monster.

But something about the smell was strangely familiar, a smell that quite possibly qualified in certain states as a toxic chemical spill under EPA regulations. That was no skunk smell.

That was an odor that came into your nose but got trapped in your throat, forming a solid lump of stench next to your left tonsil. It was the smell of musk, rut, and lust. It was the smell of the goat next door, a Nubian buck goat with a head like a cinder block and a "come hither" look in his eye, and it was rank.

I could hardly complain, however, because I enjoy comic relief the way some people enjoy the smell of an aftershave called, "Sex Panther." The goat fell in love with a donkey. The donkey objected violently to the prospect of being the object of buck lov'en. Mr. Medina, my neighbor, objected to the donkey trying to bite the head off of the goat. Mr. Medina chased the goat, who chased the donkey, who ran for its sexual purity.

I laughed. Then I coughed. Then I choked. Because there is nothing in this world, like the smell of a big goat in big love.

Linda (Hold Your Breath) Zern

 

1 In the year in which common courtesy didst die and the people didst make much of their “Angry Birds” and their “Farm-Villes” saying, “Just a minute whilst I dost harvest my pumpkins,” I didst continue the record of my people.

2 And in that selfsame year, I didst curse the harvesting of the imaginary pumpkins saying, “All ye that do virtually that which they do not care to do physically needs must repent or be smitten by the wrath of mine tongue.”

3 And they didst reject all mine words, being much taken with their Apps, and while they were thus engaged with their faux pumpkin growing, I didst watch and make note of all that didst happen.

4 Now the year of 2011 was on this wise: Sherwood the Mighty Hunter didst go forth to Detroit to collect the shekels that were his due, both for the support of his tribe and the blessing of others. And he didst consider himself rich both in flocks and fields and children and grandchildren. And he didst prosper in the land of Saint Cloud, wishing neither to covet or be coveted upon.

5 And I, even the Ya Ya, didst continue in that which I did begin, saying, Yea have I not come to be that which all doth desire to be in our land? Both unemployed and fed like unto Elijah the Tishbite when he wast fed by the ravens that were sent forth by the hand of God? And I doth make an answer—Yea, yea, I sayeth, I am most blessed in that I am fed by ravens—also Sherwood the Mighty Hunter, and all mine needs met by both he, who is mine husband, and by UPS.

6 And the elder son of our tribe didst return once more from the land of conflict and didst set up camp in the lands round about and didst make his home at Fort Campbell. There he didst work most earnestly both protecting the Colonel and overseeing the warriors and finding out that which is to be found out concerning weapons of war. And in all this didst he pray most earnestly for peace in the lands round about.

7 And Heather, Maren, and Adam (with their husbands and wife) didst bring forth much children and didst spend their days commencing the work of the Lord, even the work of Eternal Life, in that they did teacheth to their children that which the world could not understandeth, no, nor comprehendeth! And they did live after the manner of happiness,

8 Excepting when the parents were harvesting of their crops on Farm-Ville. Then they did ignoreth the rising generation, excepting to say, “Why doth that kid haveth no pants on?”

9 And all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Ya Ya when she sayeth, “Cometh on over. There are leftovers yet to eat.”

10 And they didst eat of the fat of the land and laughed oft and didst watch the Heavens diligently for the signs of that great and terrible day which was to come when all their children, yea all, were trained, yea trained to go in the potty and not behindeth a tree, in their pants, or on the dog.

11 And I maketh an end. May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob bless thee and keep thee in the lands of thy own inheritance this Christmas season and in all seasons of the years, excepting if this year which is to come, even 2012, be the last year then may the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob buildeth thee a bunker, well stocked with Vienna sausage. Amen.

 

Last year I did not decorate for Christmas. I don’t know; I just wasn’t feeling it. Aric was in Afghanistan. The housing market was in the local landfill. Everyone who had decided to have only one or two kids so that they could “spoil them” had succeeded.

Instead of decorating, I started my spring cleaning—in December. And I heard about the decoration desert at YaYa’s all year long.

This year I decorated. For two days I unpacked, hung, strung, pushed, moved, arranged, draped, rearranged, assembled, located, dusted, displayed, climbed, and hung. (Oh wait, I already said hung; too bad, I’m leaving it. It’s a double hung kind of story.)

Last night in glittering triumph, I prepared to hang the last ornament on the last branch of the most beautiful Christmas tree I have ever personally overseen. In exhausted triumph, I hung that last gold whatever on the tree, stepped back to admire my work, and—the whole silver and gold vision toppled straight over on top of me—shattering about half of my most cherished holiday ornaments and crushing me to death.

In fact, I’m sending this to you from the spirit world. It’s not so bad here. Lots of time. Lots of interesting folks to chat with. In fact, I see Charles Dickens right over there. I think I’m going to go over and ask him a couple of questions about the inspiration for his Christmas story. Shalom from the other side.

Linda (Holly Jolly) Zern

 

Warning: Some of the observations in this essay may appear politically incorrect, boorish, or just plain snobby. My advice is to “roll with it” and take comfort in the knowledge that your judgmental attitude toward my judgmental attitude is superior in every way.


I am a weirdo magnet.

And when I say “weirdo” I mean I attract people who are loonies, goonies, and possibly sand people. These are folks who stray from the norms of normalcy in ways that are hard to predict under normal circumstances and often involve the wearing of tinfoil pantaloons.

My husband, Sherwood (a man with a somewhat unusual name) once tried to help me find the cause of my weirdo magnetism.

“It’s because you make eye contact, listen to what the sand people have to say, and treat them like regular people.”

“Oh, you mean I’m kind.”

“Exactly! Knock it off.”

I try. I really do. But the tinfoil pantaloon people take me by surprise, often at WalMart.

Like Saturday, when the world’s oldest living hippy spotted me, sized me up, and cut me out of the herd. It’s possible that his grizzled ponytail was pulled a bit tight. From under a moustache the color of old lemonade, he informed me that he enjoyed picking up the clothes that shoppers carelessly threw on the ground in the children’s department at our local WalMart.

“Oh no. I hope it wasn’t me,” I said, feeling my hands clench reflexively around the purple velour hoodie I was holding—sized twelve months.

He continued, “But my back hurts now, and I’m done picking up clothes.” His shopping cart effectively cut me off from the shoe department, the dairy section, and electronics—also freedom.

“Would you like to know something?”

Looking the grizzled hippy man straight in the eye, I said, “Of course.” I can’t help it. I’m the curious sort.

He gestured vaguely toward the baby seat of his shopping cart.

“I’m getting a little something for myself for Christmas.”

I can’t help it. I’m a visual person. I did look.

Risking a quick glance, I saw that he had two packages of women’s underwear in his cart. White. Polyester. Not thongs. Hopefully. I looked away as quickly as my eyeballs could swivel in my eye sockets.

With a flourish and a wink, he said, “I’ve got two honeys, but they’re different sizes; I’d better not get the panties mixed up. Hee, hee, hee.”

I closed my eyes and tried to picture his “honeys,” plural. I couldn’t.

“Wow, no, I wouldn’t mix up their sizes. That might be big trouble, and you wouldn’t want that, especially at Christmas time. Hee, hee, hee. Well, good luck with that.”

Growing irrationally more concerned that he was about to ask me my panty size I began to inch away and look for my grown daughter, a daughter who had managed to completely disappear into a rack of little girl’s pajama bottoms during the conversation. See above.

I know. I know. It was a harsh, biased, judgmental response to the perfectly nice overtures of a perfectly nice panty-loving, weirdo.

I can’t help it. I’m a weirdo magnet.

Linda (Two-For-One) Zern









 

By the year 2099 (if we survive 2012, 2013, and the year that asteroid comes back with Bruce Willis riding on it) the world will be covered with old people. Some will be older than others.

I am anticipating that oldness will be very hip in the coming years and some oldness hipper than others, depending on the condition of people’s knees—also hips, real or faux. My husband and I will be on the tail end of the baby booming retirement craze, having been born on the tail end of the baby boom. Actually, we were born on the fizzle at the end of the baby boom, which means that our hips still work (last check) but our knees talk more than they used to. Okay, our knees don’t really “talk” they cuss, and in my husband’s case, they swear up a blue streak.

The following is actual pillow talk between two fifty-somethings contemplating the end of their functioning kneecaps, okay, it’s a conversation between me and my boyfriend of thirty-three years (Sherwood the Knuckle-Knee Zern):

“Sherwood, I’m giving you the two minute warning. Brace yourself; I’m going to roll over and give you a hug and a goodnight kiss.”

I heard him rearranging himself next to me, amid the sounds of his shoulder popping, his knee mourning the loss of its ACL, and his spine snapping shut.

I rolled toward him and puckered up; his shoulder popped like a breakfast circle made by elves.

He moaned and clutched his shoulder, which brought his knee in contact with a particularly rough fold of bed linen. He thrashed around on our pillow top mattress. I watched.

“Babe, have you been doing those exercises with that big rubber band thingy the doctor gave you.”

“Which one?” he gasped out.
“Hunh, which what? Which exercise, rubber band thingy, or body part? Is that what you mean?” He continued to thrash, concentrating on not answering me. “Okay, have you been doing your shoulder exercises with the blue rubber band thingy the doctor gave you?”

He paused in his thrashing.

“I always pack the rubber band thingy the doctor gives me when I travel.”

“You know, you have to actually do the exercises with the rubber band thingy to keep your body parts from falling off with old age and mildew.” I started in on my (the-couple-who-exercises-together-stays-out-of-the-orthopedic-surgeon’s-office-together) speech, finishing with, “How many of those exercise rubber bands from the doctor do you have anyway?”

He considered.

“I have enough of those exercise rubber bands that if I sewed them all together I’d have a hell of a slingshot.”

“A slingshot might be a good thing to have when the zombie apocalypse gets here, ‘cuz you sure aren’t going to be outrunning those zombies anymore,” I said and gave him a goodnight kiss. “And what’s with the cussing? You never cuss.”

“That wasn’t me; that was my knee back talking.”

I got up to take some Advil PM for the burning in my lumpy finger bones—also known as arthritis, which in my case is caused by meanness—also mildew. Bring on the zombie baby booming apocalypse.

Linda (Got Fit Hips?) Zern






 

Potty training is a real **pisser.

Just ask Sadie, my three-year old granddaughter, who at any given moment breaks into hysterical weeping when she has a potty training malfunction or thinks that she MIGHT have had a potty training malfunction or SUSPECTS that she might have a potty training malfunction sometime in the future—near or far.

Just ask Kipling, my three-year grandson, who breaks into hysterical weeping when someone mentions to him that it might be time to change his diaper, a diaper hanging approximately to his ankles and filled with “the usual” byproducts—also an action figure or two and random chunks of cement. We have a fun family nickname for a diaper that has seen dryer better days; we call it the venom sack.

Just ask Sherwood, my husband, who is sensitive (apparently) to something used at restaurants to create meals—like food, and who loves to regale the family at Sunday dinner with the tale of his famous potty malfunction in a public bathroom. In the lobby! Of a Marrott! At a sink! Don’t ask! Note: For the full story you have to come to Sunday dinner. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you’ll be required to change Kip’s diaper.

Just ask Heather, Kip’s mother, who has Irritable Bowl Syndrome and a Gastroenterologist. Heather says that when she goes to the doctor, it’s a waiting room full of eighty year olds and her, but it’s worth it to get the good pills. Heather’s doctor says that IBS is often caused by internalized stress, probably from trying to potty train a kid with random chunks of cement in his disposable pants.

Actually, several members of my family seem to have trouble with their gastroenterology and it’s not just the toddlers, which makes family outings exciting. Receptacles that members of my family have considered using as an emergency potty include: trashcans, hastily dug holes, a hedge on the National Mall in DC when the public bathroom was closed for cleaning, and my handbag.

And that’s why I don’t believe in “the dignity of man,” because there’s no such beast and even if there were such a beast as a dignified man, he’d still have to poop somewhere. Trust me on this.

Linda (Regular Jane) Zern

**Pisser – a crude ancient Greek word meaning a pain in the diaper.




 

I go to night school. I go to night school to pursue higher education, which is education that is higher or taller than lower, shorter education. You can tell if education is higher because the people are taller—also sleepier. Presently, I am studying Major English Writings I. These are major writings like Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales, but they are not in English. Another way to tell if higher education is higher than lower education is that the class titles will be wildly misleading.

In lower, shorter education there are classes called “Reading Time” where you sit in a circle and read stuff. In higher, taller education there are classes where you sit in a circle and you read stuff, but the stuff you are reading will be incomprehensible. The stuff you read in the taller education will make you long for a Star Trek Universal Language Translator or the Swedish Chef from the Muppets, because at least the Swedish Chef makes you laugh.

After you have read the incomprehensible stuff that sounds like the Swedish Chef making meatballs, you will be asked to write stuff about the stuff you have read. There are a few rules:

1) Incomprehensibility will be punished.
2) Wild theories, outlandish speculation, and big words are rewarded.
3) Whatever you write, there can always be more or less of it.
4) Nothing means what you think—a flea is never a flea.

I was excited to see that we would be reading a poem about a flea in major English writings. I thought, I can always use a few good tips about flea control and outbreak prevention here on the farm. Alas (that’s a word I learned in higher, taller education) alas, I had not embraced rule number four, see above. I was not alone.

At the big circle table where we sit, the student on my right shifted in her seat.

“I’m going to say that the flea is a fetus,” she said.

Another skill I have acquired in higher education is the ability to speak out of the side of my mouth, under my breath, so that my identity is concealed in a group setting.

“I like it. Flea starts with F, fetus starts with F. The teacher will love it.”

My friend was encouraged.

The girl on my left leaned over and in a conspiratorial tone whispered, “I don’t think you can go wrong if you mention the word ‘penis.’ I think the flea is a penis.”

“Nice.” I reassured her.

“How about the flea being the embodiment of the church’s inability to establish a system of semi-institutional ways to castrate the male dominated society’s need to express its infantile sexuality, or the flea is a pregnant alien with a penis.”

I’m not sure I actually heard this or just hallucinated it.

Somebody asked, “Linda, what’cha got?”

“Fleas suck?” No one laughed. “Nothing. I got nothing.”

My problem is that I’m a writer. I write about fleas and peas and creaky knees, and I have a hard time not thinking like a writer or about the writer. My sympathy is with the guy who wrote about the fleas and what he was thinking about when he wrote The Flea and whether or not he’d been having a hard pest control week, or if the flea situation at his house was just totally whacked out . . . and brother, I feel you. I really do.

Here’s to higher education that is taller and smarter and deeper—don’t forget deeper.

Linda (Smarty Pants) Zern











 

My husband (Sherwood Kevin—and they called him Sherwood not Kevin) and I have racked up a fairly impressive list of most embarrassing moments over the past thirty-three years of marriage.

There was the time Sherwood ran out of gas in the drive-through of McDonald’s where he had to push the car up to the “pick-up” window. Then there was the knee surgery/Sodium Pentothal fiasco when Sherwood had a little trouble coming “out of it” and told the Nazis’ (i.e. nurses) in the recovery room that he had four wives and thirty-seven children and a really HUGE . . . um . . . REASON for all those wives. Talk about Big Love. Then there was the bubble gum on the hairy buttocks incident—also Sherwood.

He’s racked up a fairly impressive list of embarrassing moments. But remember I haven’t even begun to discuss the reams of charming, noxious, embarrassing moments involving various body fluids erupting in public places from our children during the “four kids, six and under” years.

The mistake is to assume that once the children are potty trained and the hubby’s knee rehab is over, that it’s finally over—the embarrassment of being alive and breathing various gases which produce—when mixed with, oh say—a Coney Island hotdog other chemical reactions. 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, “most embarrassing” is almost a competition, and I’m thinking I’ve taken the lead.

From a recent phone call confessional:

“Boy, did I have an embarrassing moment today at work.”

Not shocked, I asked, “Now what?”

“Well, I got up from my desk to greet some co-workers, and when I stood up I just let fly with a giant . . .”

Cutting him off, I yelped, “What!?”

“You know.”

“No, what? You let fly with a groan, moan, sigh . . . what?” I paused and embraced the dawning truth. With slow drip horror, I said, “You. Did. Not!”

“Yep! Right there in my cubicle.”

“Did anyone say anything?”

“Nope. But their faces said it all; it was so embarrassing.”

Silence descended over our conversation like a helium balloon filled with methane.

“Well,” I said, “I think I’ve got you beat.”

“I don’t know; that was pretty embarrassing. I’d never met those people before.” Skepticism mixed with humiliation in his voice.

“I’m telling you; I’ve got you beat.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“You know how on Mondays I clean house in my big old sweatshirt, and I don’t wear . . . you know, anything . . .”

“Rubber gloves?”

“No! I don’t wear, you know . . . foundation.” (Foundation is a Southern word for bra. It’s a cultural thing.)

“And you’re not talking about makeup.”

“Right.”

“So, I had some stuff I needed to put in one of those plastic snap Rubbermaid totes, you know those plastic storage buck-ity things with the lids that I buy by the truckload from WalMart?”

“Yes.” It was a worried “yes.”

“Okay, so after I shoved the junk into the plastic thing and I went to snap the lid closed,” I said, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, “I snapped the end of my . . . self in the lid.”

Silence.

“You mean, the part not wearing foundation,” he said.

“Roger that,” I sighed. “But the worst part is that the plastic lid was closer to my waist than my chin when I snapped my . . . self into it.”

“Wow, bummer. Okay, you win. You now hold the most embarrassing moment prize.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Mother Nature.”

And so it droops; I mean goes, and so it goes. I’ve never been one to herald “the dignity of man” much, because I’ve never found any part of living to be very dignified. Mostly it’s just people pretending that nothing disgusting ever comes out of their noses or other orifices—ever. 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 here’s 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 I’ll 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