“Okay, let’s go.”
Surely the shock on my face could be seen from space.
“What are you talking about? Go where?”
My husband made that face he makes when he thinks that I’m being obtuse or uppity. He makes that face a lot.
“Sherwood, I’m in my bathrobe. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or where you think that we are going,” I yipped.
I was, in fact, standing in my bathrobe—a great fluffy yellow affair tied with an old purple poke-a-dot bathrobe belt, because I lost the belt to my present great fluffy yellow affair and had to go back to the default belt from the purple poke-a-dot affair. I happen to know that I looked like an out of work circus clown.
“We talked about it.” He was insistent.
The furrows between my eyes became trenches.
“We talked about it? In this life? Where my eyes open?”
“Sure, you know, that time when we talked about it.”
“Honey, look at my face.”
He looked at my face.
“See this?” I said, pointing at my face. “This is shock. I could not be more shocked. Do you think that if we had talked about this I would look this shocked?”
I pointed to my feet.
“See these?” I wiggled my toes in my No-Nonsense socks from Walmart. “These are socks. I’m in my bathrobe and I have no idea what you think we talked about. I am not dressed for going to anywhere, nor will I be anytime soon.”
For the first time he seemed unsure of the alleged conversation.
“Well, . . . maybe . . . you forgot.”
I retied my purple poke-a-dot belt and tipped my furrowed forehead at him.
“Maybe, and maybe you have conversations in your head that you think I can hear because you’re thinking really loudly.”
His brow furrowed.
The conversation deteriorated from that point, but at least I remember that it occurred in this dimension.
I appreciate that my husband and I have been blissfully wedded for more than thirty years. I appreciate that he thinks we have reached a state of sync that means we can read each other’s minds. I appreciate ESP. I just wish it were true. Well, maybe next year.
Here’s to conversations that happen in real time and with audible words.
Linda (Read My Lips—Out Loud) Zern













 

The Dignity of Man – Not

Human beings are born in goo, go out of this life in gunk, and in between there’s a lot of body fluids, and anybody that prattles on about the dignity of man is probably planning to pull the plug on your respirator. Since when is life dignified?

Our oldest daughter and her husband are welcoming their fourth child this summer—it will be a joyous, exciting, and thrilling event—but dignified it will not be.

Recently she started the baby welcoming process by taking Zoe (aged 5), Conner (aged 3), and Kip (aged 1) to the lab with her to start her lab work, not realizing that she’d have to drag the three children into the waiting room bathroom with her when she “produced a urine sample.” She reported the following “dignified” conversation.

Conner, at the top of his lungs, yelled, “Hey why are you peeing in that cup, mom? That’s ba-sgusting!”

Laughter rolled through the waiting room, squeaking under the crack in the door.

“Hey, mom I can see your penis.” Heather tried to pee in the cup and hush the loudmouth at the same time.

Kip, fascinated with the bathroom acoustics, began experimenting with screaming. Zoe tried to hush both of her brothers.

“Mom, why are peeing in that cup? Why?” Conner, never one to be derailed from a subject, continued shouting, “Yucky, I’m not drinking that pee.”

Laughter wafted through the keyhole from the waiting room into the bathroom. Our daughter, giving up any fantasy of dignity, led her mouthy group across the lobby, carrying her own pee-pee in a cup.

To celebrate the Thanksgiving season our daughter, our daughter-in-law, Sarah, and their friend, Jennie, decided to help their children build a facsimile of a Native American t-pee in my backyard out of bamboo poles and paper bags. It was adorable.

The children drew crayon buffalo and stick figures on the t-pee. When the structure was assembled, the children (Emma, Zoe, Cameron, and Conner) crawled excitedly inside. They were adorable. Pictures were taken. Their mommies congratulated themselves on teaching their children Native American dignity and respect for diversity.

Conner immediately crawled to the opening of the t-pee, pulled his britches down, and whizzed. His cousin, Emma crawled through the resulting Conner puddle, soaking her pants from knee to ankle. Her mother was horrified. Dignity evaporated.

Later, Conner’s mommy, exhausted from t-pee making and pregnancy, observed, “Sarah thinks she wants a boy.” Heather paused. “She doesn’t.”

Conner’s yell echoed through the house, “Mom, come wipe my butt.”

Dignity is a myth, and it’s a pretty safe bet that anyone yabbing on about the dignity of mankind is 1) a lawyer 2) a politician, or 3) somebody looking to inherit.

I say the sooner we abandon dignity, the sooner we’ll be able to laugh at—well, just about everything. Have a dignity free week.

Linda (burpsnottoot) Zern









 

1. And Sherwood did know his wife and did begat Aric, Heather, Maren, and Adam in the land between the two great waters, and Adam, even the youngest son, did begat Sadie and did help to raise Emma in a home that he and his goodly wife Sarah did buy-eth in the southly land of the Saintly Cloud.

2. And Heather with Phillip did begat Zoe, Conner, Kipling and even a fourth child, which did promise to come forth in the month of July of the year of our Lord two thousand and ten.

3. And Maren with her spouse, one T.J. of Titusville, did also begat a child that they did expect to bring forth in the summer of that selfsame year, even a month past that of her sister, even August.

4. And Aric did continue to go forth to battle in far and distant lands, protected by the hand of the Lord, and miracles, and the blessed military doctors of Brooks Medical Center of the burn unit in the land of Texas, a land of much American support for the sons of Helaman that did go forth to battle in the lands roundabout.

5. Whereas the rising generation of our tribe did grow much in goodness and understanding and did begin-eth to lose their teeth, ride bicycles, and to be taught somewhat in all the learning of their fathers and mothers. And the children, even the youngest of the rising generation, did learn to walk like unto Frankenstein and did lurch about as they went forth to hunt lost snack foods that did rolleth under various countertops and footstools.

6. And Sherwood with his wife Linda, even the keeper of the records, did have their wrestle before Babylon, Sherwood even among the infidel peoples, which did dwell in the cities of the great waters in the lands northward—even General Motors Corporation. And he did dwell with them from time to time and did work much with their numbers and with the voice of OnStar, a voice which did sound forth from Heaven to guide and comfort many who did bring forth sufficient money.

7. And I did wrestle before the math department of Valencia, with much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, so that I might acquire the learning of the long dead Egyptians, who did measure much of their pyramids so that they might torment all generations of mankind with their mathematics--also algebra, and I did rejoice in the day of my deliverance, even the end of the semester.

8. And I make no more accounting of our days, sufficeth to say, that we did yet dwell in peace and harmony in the land of our first inheritance and we did call forth our tribe often to both counsel and to purchase Chinese food on the last day of the week, even Fridays. And we did rejoice in our good fortune and our blessings and we did confess God’s hand in all our doings.

9. And now I make an end.

 

It’s My Birthday!

Here are the facts:

I was born feet first. My mother liked to tell me that if I had been born in a primitive country they would have left me on a flat rock to starve to death or be eaten by dingoes. To this day I have an irrational fear of flat rocks.

When my father was told he had a daughter he said a bad word, which my mother recorded in my baby book. I suspect the last three words I will say in this lifetime will be bad.

My baby brother was born fifteen months after me. He bit me a lot. In all my baby pictures I’m wearing long sleeves to cover the bite marks. The official story is that my brother was colicky, but I suspect demon possession and foul play.

I grew up small, wearing a size two in the first grade, and big kids used to sit on me on the school bus. I never climbed the rope, but I could read before anybody else in my class.

In high school, I attracted my husband by wearing pink shorts and a pink “Sweet Honesty” t-shirt. I haven’t worn pink shorts in a very long time, but I still wear “Sweet Honesty” perfume. He’s still attracted.

We married and had four children—none of which were born feet first—but all of which have birthdays and belly buttons.

I spent the WORST birthday of my life hanging from the second story eaves of our house in North Carolina, cleaning the gutters out before the big ice storm froze the water and gutter sludge in the gutters, forcing it up under the shingles, causing our roof to leak. It had already started to sleet when Sherwood made me climb the ladder, because he was too tubby to climb the ladder, and I wasn’t strong enough to hold a tubby man on a two-story ladder.

It was terrible. There were frozen earthworms in those filthy gutters, and my gloves iced over in minutes, if not seconds. I couldn’t move my fingers, so I just sort of clubbed the icy muck out with my hands frozen into rigor-mortis claws. I cried. The tears froze to my cheeks. I sad bad words and condemned my husband’s use of procrastination as an alternative lifestyle choice. I turned forty-four that day and aged twelve years.

The moral of the story is that it would have cost forty-bucks to have a truck full of Mexicans clean out our gutters. They were sad when I didn’t hire them. I was sad too.

Today was a good birthday. I turned fifty-one, mowed the yard, and cleaned out the chicken coop. It could have been a lot worse, believe me. My family could have put me out on an ice flow shaped like a flat rock.

Linda (Birthday Babe) Zern