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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 |
| Once, when we lost our TV remote control our grown son opted to sit two feet away from the television, so that he could change the television channels with his feet. Is this an argument for or against evolution? I can see it both ways. “What are you doing?” I asked, watching oldest son deftly scroll through a hundred cable channels with his big toe. “Seeing what’s on.” “Ever think of standing up and walking to the television?” “Why? I have toes.” Channel-changing-feet-skills might be considered a sign that in some distant past our kind surfed the primordial foliage using, for the most part, toes. Or, it could be taken as evidence that no one and nothing evolves—ever—not in a million, cabillion years. According to the essays I’m reading in college, we are all animals with toes—made up of evolutionary itches, created by quixotic chemicals, prompted by migratory messages, driven by seasonal tidal fluxes and the nagging need to keep our DNA from drying out. We are animals with feet and toes and evolutionary baggage, just like sea cucumbers. Oh wait, that doesn’t quite work. Of course, we could all be vampires, but that is another theory entirely. I want to go on record. I don’t want to be an animal. I know about animals. I live on a farm. I grew up in the country. I’ve seen things. Some animals will hump your leg, peck your head, sniff your crotch and hump other animals (not necessarily of their own species) all before you’ve walked halfway to the mailbox—and in front of company. When our Chow puppy discovered he was a boy, he became a one-dog hump fest. It was horrifying. Teddy would lurk under the porch, waiting to “sandbag” the first leg he spotted. Horrifying. Especially, when our five-year old daughter started opening the back door, screaming, “Teddy, don’t have sex with me,” before she went out to play. We once had a turkey that was so mean it chased me through a sandspur patch trying to peck my face off. I’m short. Turkeys are big. I could have wound up with no eyes, and I was barefoot. I’ve seen vultures and bald eagles fist fighting over raccoon road kill, arguing over who was going to get to wear the coon skin cap, no doubt. Rabbits are fluffy, adorable cannibals. My parents owned two roosters that had worked out a tag team system for rape. One rooster would grab a hen by the neck, push her head down in the dirt, and wait while his buddy went about ensuring survival of the fittest. Then they’d switch. Our next-door neighbor owned two huge white mules—a matched set. They were murderers. When the goats wandered up to nibble out of their feed box, the mules would chomp them with their gigantic yellow mule teeth, give them a good hard shake, snap their necks, and then toss those goats over their shoulder as a warning to the others. The same neighbor owned a donkey I named Porno Pete. Pete considered himself quite the well-endowed catch and fancied himself in love with my mares. Porno Pete spent his days standing at the fence line displaying his . . . boy stuff. I had to forbid the grandchildren to look at him. I had to forbid myself from looking at him. I once saw a baby lamb pull a cross bow out and shoot a vampire. Okay, maybe not. But hermit crabs, they’re the worst. Don’t misunderstand. I love animals. I have my vet on speed dial. I am dedicated to the fantasy that my dog could drive my truck if she had opposable thumbs, but I don’t want to be her. My dog licks herself. She eats . . . unspeakable things. She has an irrational fear of dump trucks, and she lets our Yorkshire terrier dominate her backside on a regular basis. What are we? A bunch of five-toed channel changing hermit crabs scrabbling around looking for the perfect remote control. Where were you raised? A nest made of dryer lint? In a den, dug under the garden gnome? Snap out of it and get your feet off the furniture. Evolution does not give you the excuse to act like a primordial slug with bad posture. Of course, it’s a divine design, set in motion by—as the Greeks like to call him—the “unmoved mover.” The Greeks reasoned if all the universe is moving then someone had to be standing in a firm place to set it all in motion, probably while sitting in a big easy chair and by using his big toe to poke at the stars. Linda (Opposable Thumbs) 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, yesterday 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." He sounded a bit introspective. "You know, 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 did not follow up on his ear status. “Oh my gosh . . . people are freezing to death up there, while out 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 continued his tale of survival. “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 of 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 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 |
| So many time saving, work reducing, stress minimizing gadgets—so little time to figure out how they work or how to fix them when they don’t work or how to rid them of hamster infestations. Troublesome, especially when you’ve become completely dependent and addicted to the use of afore mentioned gizmos. Washers and dryers are real stress relievers—or they can be. When we were young, poor, newly married, and our clothes were often embarrassingly rumpled, someone gave us a FREE washing machine. It had a rat living in it. The rat left piles of rodent flotsam in and around the machine to make sure we understood who owned what. We owned our rumpled clothes. The rat owned our washing machine. I found the situation stressful—not to mention frightening. What happened, or could happen, or might happen when adding that last pair of random biker shorts you discover that there’s a rat doing the sidestroke during the wash cycle? Those suckers can jump—the rat, not the biker shorts. My newly wedded husband had to trap the washing machine rat and then bonk it on the head with a barbell. Afterwards, I thought I heard him shout, “Today, I am a man.” Some years later, Brownie the “Knocked-Up” Hamster managed to escape her cage into our brand new squeaky-clean (never used) house. She re-located to the back of my brand new squeaky-clean (never used) stove. Driven by instinct and early labor, Brownie began to nest in the insulation of the stove. Occasionally, Brownie would stick her nose through the grating on the back of the stove, wiggle her whiskers at me, and giggle. My phone call to the service center is legendary. “You don’t understand. There’s a hamster nesting in the back of my new stove.” “Serial number please.” “No, no serial number. This is an emergency. Brownie the Hamster is pregnant. She may be crowning.” My voice became more strident with each word. Brownie pressed one eye to the grating and watched my panicked pacing. A whisper of pink insulation drifted from the back of the stove to the kitchen floor. “I can’t find any record of an extended warranty for you Mrs. Zern.” “What difference does that make? Does your fancy warranty cover hamster labor and delivery?” “We can have a repairman out there Friday of next week.” “NEXT WEEK! By that time, I’ll have a flock of hamsters setting up a condominium association in my beautiful new glass top stove. Argggggh!” I thought I heard Brownie the Hamster asking for an epidural. “Listen, let me ask you something, Wanda,” I said, trying another tack. “That’s right, isn’t it? Wanda? So Wanda, what might happen, I mean what might the possible ramifications be, if I turn the oven on full blast and set it to self-clean?” It took hours to pry Brownie out of that time saving invention. Finally, when a car repairman, while checking the engine of our family van called out, “Hey lady, did you know you have a rat living in your engine?” I knew enough to play it cool. “Of course I know there’s a rat in my engine. She’s our hamster’s second cousin, twice removed. Visiting from Bithlo.” There are days when I’d rather wash my clothes by beating them with rocks down by the river, cook my buffalo on a stick over a fire pit, and drag my kids around between two tree trunks lashed to a goat. There’d be less stress, less work, and a lot less time wasted—also less rodent drama. Linda (Driving Miss Rat) Zern |
| "Look, everyone! There's a water moose with horns at Mr. Randy’s.” Conner pointed to our next-door neighbor’s back pasture, and then went back to calmly digging in the sandbox. Conner was four. The adult faction of my family sat on the back porch in the state of semi-stupor typical of our kind on the weekends. We watched Conner and the other grandchildren as they frolicked about the yard. We were hoping for a few moments of relative calm and possibly quiet—also no immediate need for moving any large muscles. “What honey? What did you say?” He pointed again and repeated himself. No one moved. No one twitched. No large muscles contracted. Here’s what we were hoping he said: “Garble, larple! There’s . . . some-wa-thing . . . garble with ha morns.” Nonsense, that required no adult action. What we were afraid he actually said: “I need apple juice in a special sippy cup made of hammered gold, a snack that you’ll have to cook in a wok, my backpack that’s been lost for a month in Siberia, or the special bug jar from the attic.” What we pretended he said: “How cute, he sees a bug.” What we said (in a condescending adult way): “What did you say Conner? Did you find a bug, honey?” What Conner actually said, again: “I see it,” he said, pointing harder. “It’s a water moose with horns.” We looked at each other (parents, grandparents, and assorted relatives) and debated the possibilities, watching for signs that one of us was about to crack and get up off our big butts to go figure out if we were, in fact, being invaded by marauding water moose. “I think he’s seen a water bug.” “He’s just pretending about something.” “He’s playing.” “He has sand in his mouth.” “Maybe one of us should check it out?” No one moved. No one twitched. Conner pointed and raised one eyebrow at us with the regal disdain of a four-year old. “Oh for Heaven’s sake; I’ll go check.” I cracked and stood up. I’m always the first to crack and everyone knows it. They depend on it. I walked up the gentle slope of the septic tank and looked for a water moose in our neighbor’s back pasture. Conner wandered over, standing next to me. Sure enough, a creature three parts gristle, six parts rawhide, and one part bovine had managed to jump a fence and wade through a designated wet lands area to forage and trespass. Chewing placidly, the old cow meandered around Mr. Randy’s property. Brown with a white blazed face, the old cow raised her head, displaying a hefty set of horns. “You see?” Conner asked. Conner looked up at me, trusting me to see the truth of it, knowing that I would. I gave him a quick nod. He smiled, winked and gave me a thumb’s up. “Is there something there?” Some lazy grownup punk from the porch called. “Sure. It’s a water moose with horns,” I called out. “Yep.” Conner nodded in companionship and agreement and then went back to the sandbox. The water moose shook its horns at the sound of our voices and bolted. She waded back through the swamp hole and jumped the fence to become, nothing more or less, than a fat old cow with a sway back and tired udders. My grandchildren never let ignorance of a thing hold them back. If they don’t know what to call something, they make it up. If they don’t understand, they ask. If they don’t have an answer, they do their best to figure one out. “Zoe, why is the sky blue?” Conner asked. Stroking her little brother’s cheek, the way she had seen her mother do, Zoe gave it her best shot. “Because Conner, blue is your favorite color, and Heavenly Father knows that it’s your favorite color, and so he made the sky blue—for you.” And grownups think they have all the answers. I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Linda (Water Moose Crossing Guard) Zern |
| My youngest son and I were in the checkout line at Kmart. He was confessing. I was trying to look cool and unfazed, while choking on my own horror spit. Youngest son was telling me that he and a couple of his buddies had been experimenting with an incendiary device of the low cost, high flammability variety—also illegal, probably, most likely . . . sweet Mother McCrea. I won’t bore you with the details, and that way you won’t have to testify at the trial. “But don’t worry, Mom,” he assured me, “we couldn’t get it to blow up.” Sweet Mother McCrea. Beyond shocked, but still trying to play it cool, I looked to the gentleman behind the register and appealed to him for some kind of adult MALE support. I was hoping he would roundly condemn the mercenary actions of my son and his gang of four. The MALE cashier said, “Ah lady, that ain’t nothing. Me and my buddies burned down a bridge once, a big one.” The elderly MAN behind us in line started to chuckle gently. The cashier MAN joined in, giving us a conspiratorial wink and looking wistful. “They still don’t know who did it, but that was in New York.” Another MAN in line sighed—nostalgically. I am ever puzzled by maleness. I have never, ever had the overpowering desire to ignite, blowup, or dynamite anything. I do, occasionally, burn some lemon-scented candles when I soak in the tub—but not the same thing, I’m thinking. I have never heard my daughters chortle and exult with triumph because they can (and did) urinate on a fire. I have never had one of my female type friends confess a bridge, barn or hay wagon burning to me. I have never heard any women of my association rejoice in their penchant for mayhem by saying, “Come on girls, let’s get some rags, a bottle and some gasoline, light it up and see what happens next.” Let me think . . . nope . . . don’t remember any sleepovers like that. Men are such a puzzle. If men aren’t from Mars then where are they from? They’re from a place a lot farther away and hotter than Mars. That’s where. Burning down bridges, indeed, and if you don’t put that sharpened stick, chunk of rock, or spear down this minute, mister, you’re going to lose an eye, and then how are you going to see to light up all those Molotov cocktail fuses? My tips on raising boys include setting up checkpoints for full body searches and always assuming that where there’s smoke, there is fire, or there’s going to be fire, or urine. Always be ready to remind your boy child that burning down a bridge may sound like fun now, but does he really want to be working in the garden department at Kmart when he’s thirty-seven. Pssssst . . . I have no idea how bridge burning and garden department cashiering are related, but that’s one of my strengths—verbal gymnastics and convoluted reasoning. Linda (Fire Marshall) Zern |
| In the beginning, I read because I had to figure out what those two crazy kids, Dick and Jane, were up to with their dog named Spot. Then I read because the words were everywhere: cereal boxes, road signs, billboards, newspapers, and the instructions on the back of the Jiffy Pop popcorn. The words were every place I looked. And I could READ them. It may have been the magic of ordinary things, but it was magic. After that, I realized that the Reader’s Digest people had filled our house with edited, condensed volumes of . . . well, everything from Michener to Buck. Those books were condensed—like soup—just add reading, so I did. For a long time, I read to escape. Enough said. For an even longer time after that, I kept right on reading because 1) it was one of the things I could do while I breastfed 2) it was cheaper than jet skiing 3) and it kept my mind from atrophying into tapioca. In the time that followed, reading became a habit that enlarged my soul, filled my mind, dazzled my dreams, and acquainted me with the world as it might be, could be, should be, would never be, but wouldn’t it be cool if it was—in a sparkle unicorn kind of way? I kept right on reading, until I ran out of the kind of books that I thrilled to read. Now I read to know what to write, always keeping in mind all the lonely little girls out there, in the dark places, who turn to books for comfort and company and who want to figure out what silliness Dick and Jane and their dog named Spot are going to get into next. |
| Yankee women are tough, according to one of my dear friends from the frozen intrepid north. “We women of New England can give birth on an iceberg, swim back to the mainland across the North Sea, while carrying our newborns in our teeth—naked.” “The mother is naked or the baby’s naked?” “Both.” New England women are tough. Right up until they come to semi-tropical Florida, that is. Give me one Yankee woman from Connecticut for a weekend, and I’ll show you a former Navy Lieutenant rolling around in someone’s St. Augustine grass shrieking “Is it on me? Is it on me?” Two words. Tree frogs. Tree frogs are sucker footed, car hopping, slime flinging, gooey-tongued attack animals. They are notorious stowaways and lurkers. It’s common knowledge here in the semi-tropics. Tree frogs lurk in car doors and automobile air conditioning vents; they cling to windshield wiper blades and plot ways to leap through car windows so they can plaster themselves to northerners—also everybody else. Tree frogs are not Florida’s greatest ambassadors of good will, in my opinion. “Let’s head over to the beach and experience the glory of a Florida horizon line,” I said to my Yankee friend, anxious that she had a positive semi-tropical visit. She’d already excreted enough sweat to fill a kid’s wading pool in the 150% humidity. She was game—also gamey. My son, Adam, decided to go along for the ride. When Adam jumped into the backseat of the Grand Am, a tree frog followed. It jumped into the car in an elegant curving arc of slimy tree frog goop, landing with a plop on Adam’s leg. It’s little sucker feet attaching with efficient amphibian sucking action. Let me be clear. Adam jumped into the car. The frog jumped in. Adam jumped out—screaming. The tree frog stayed in—clinging wetly. Panic spread like mildew. My friend was out of that car and sprinting for Maine before you could say “Kermit.” I tried to appeal to my friend’s Puritan heritage and “can-do” Yankee spirit. “It’s just a little tree frog. The whole thing could fit on a nickel.” She continued to panic. “You’re too big to swallow. Come back. What’s a little frog toe glue?” I watched as she stopped, dropped, and rolled her way across a neatly manicured lawn in suburbia. Just in case, the attack frog had secreted itself about her person, I suppose. Adam shuddered and brushed at imaginary suction cup glue on his leg. My head started to hurt from excessive snorting, howling, and guffawing—all glazed over with a dash of nasal drip. I kept right on laughing until out of the corner of my sharply trained eye, I caught sight of the tree frog making another grand leap. It jumped over my car seat like a thoroughbred riding to the hounds and landed on my right anklebone. There was a wet sound when it hit and sucked on. I was out of that car and screaming, “Find it. Find it. Find it,” before you could say sucker feet. There in a quiet Florida cul de sac, two middle-aged women stood weeping and shuddering. We yelled—okay—I yelled at Adam to begin a perimeter search. My formerly intrepid friend didn’t yell. She just faded away into “no-can-do” whimpering. “Adam, you have to find it, or I will not hesitate to wreck this car should it jump on me while I’m busy exceeding the speed limit.” “No-can-do, Mom, I’m still in recovery.” We looked toward the car. Nothing moved. We looked at each other—no one moved. Time passed. Still nothing. Without warning or explanation, the nickel sized tree frog jumped out and disappeared into the green, green grass of home. We had been the victims of a drive by frogging . . . . . . and survived—not gracefully, or well, or even with our self respect in tact—but we had survived. Bring on the icebergs. Linda (Two Words) Zern |
| “I knew foxes are quite often rabid, so I knew he was up to no good.” This is a direct quote. It is a direct quote from a North Carolina woman who woke up to find a rabid fox attacking her foot. She was in bed, her own—sleeping, at night, inside her house. The house had walls, windows, doors, and a roof. It was not a tree house or mud hut. She was not lost in the black forest. This is a direct quote, which I believe to be a shining example of an understatement. “Up to no good.” Are you kidding? The fox was gnawing on her foot. It had managed to tunnel, smash, jimmy, or squeeze its way into this woman’s home, climb onto her bed, locate her vulnerable naked foot flesh, and zero in on its toe target—all why being infected with a hideous, fatal disease. How? Why? What the **hell? “Up to no good.” You mean the way Darth Vader was “up to no good?” I love words, and as a writer, I am constantly fascinated with styles and methods of word usage via various forms of communication. How much is too much? How much is not enough? And how much is just plain kooky talk? Here’s a look at various forms of communication as it relates to rabid fox attacks, an important topic for the New Year, certainly. An understatement is (according to the big book of word meanings) an intentional lack of emphasis in expression. For example: "I knew foxes are quite often rabid, so I knew he was up to no good." Duh! Or, "That fox was like having a pack of teething toddlers chewing their way through my toe bits." This statement being an example of hyperbole, which is an exaggeration or extravagant statement, which differs from an exaggeration—somehow, but I’m still a little shaky on exactly how it differs. The word exaggerate comes from a Latin word meaning to “pile up” or “heap.” For example: "There was a dumpster full of foxes heaped up in my bed—draining blood out of my body through my foot." A question is an expression of inquiry that invites or calls for a reply. "Is that a rabid fox attacking my foot? Honey, where’s the club?" An exclamation is an abrupt, forceful utterance; an outcry. "Holy . . . mother . . . puss bucket! Smack it again! Harder!" The popular exclamation is often followed by or capped off with a declaration (An unsworn statement of facts that is admissible as evidence.) "I found it, the clause in the insurance policy that covers rabid fox attacks—inside the house, under a king sized quilt. You’re covered." Since the time this incident was first reported, I’ve taken to sleeping in my rubber garden boots and holding a crowbar in my clenched fist. So far, I’ve managed to avoid any ugly incidents where my husband staggers home some midnight hour from the airport, only to be welcomed with a crowbar up ‘side the head. Whereupon I would have to declare, “But Officer, I thought my husband was a rabid fox up to no good.” Linda (Hyperbolism Forever) Zern ** Please note: That although there are almost no situations in which I will make use of an expletive in my writing, there are a very few—one being rabid fox attacks or, possibly, pinworm infestations. |
| He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Effigy All good Americans know that the formula for financial success is to “see a need, fill the need.” After tracking the socio-political trends and patterns in 2010 in proper scientific fashion using complicated charts, statistics, mathematics, spread sheets, surveys and an abacus (okay, I watch a lot of cable news,) I’ve developed a new money making scheme . . . oops, I mean, business plan for 2011. Understanding that financial success can be defined as the making of so much money, a person requires metal buckets to carry it around. So here’s my idea and don’t try to copy me. I’ll sue. I’m an American. I know lawyers. Well, I know of lawyers. Well, I’ve seen lawyers on TV. I’m calling my new company {b}Burn Baby Burn Incorporated, and I’m forcing my family to work in my factory, without pay, to keep costs down and profits high. I prefer to call them “my little elves” rather than slaves. After watching Greece, France, England, and pretty much the entire rest of the world riot their way through 2010, I recognized the growing need for a company that can provide realistic and anatomically correct effigies for public demonstrations of fiery anger. Note: Effigy is a fancy word for dummy stuffed with dryer lint for easy burning. Our company motto: “Burn a dummy no one will confuse with garbage or laundry.” Are you as tired as we are of watching a couple thousand of your fellow global citizens whipping each other into a frenzied mob and then—suddenly, shockingly—realizing that their dummy committee forgot the dummy? Or worse, they show up with an effigy that looks like their mother’s panty hose stuffed with Kleenex. We, here at Burn Baby Burn, are continually shocked by the poor quality of effigies we see burning on cable news. Those things don’t look like bad scarecrows, let alone recognizable international leaders. Our company will keep poor planning on the part of the “dummy stuffing committee” from putting a damper on your mob’s righteous rage. We’re offering (at a reasonable price) effigies with both recognizable features and accurate cultural attire. You want to burn a government official in effigy, and we want you to. Just give us a name, and we’ll Google a face. For a few cents more, your personalized effigy will come pre-soaked in a high-grade lighter fluid for more rapid, dramatic flames. We recognize there’s nothing worse than a dummy that refuses to light up quickly. Don’t let your mob’s murderous hate fizzle. In addition, the effigies will come with a dozen complimentary sticks, recognizing that our clients enjoy beating their stuffed dummies senseless with sticks before they torch them. Here at Burn Baby Burn we know what gets you hopping mad, and we feel your pain. Our future corporate plans include an expansion of our “Dummy Stuffing Division” to include the mass production of highly flammable flags, icons, posters, placards, and symbols. Why burn one flag when you can burn thousands? Of course, we’ll have group discounts for our very best repeat rioters. And you know who you are. Your foaming, spitting, rock chucking mob can count on us to be discrete, efficient, and prompt. We understand how tricky planning “spontaneous demonstrations” of anarchy can be. For those in different time zones, you’ll be able to place your orders 24/7 at our website:????www.WhoisGUYFAWKESanyway?.com???? Remember! Another of our motto’s is: You plan the snarling hate filled demonstrations, public conflagrations, and brick window smashing, and we’ll take care of the details. Complimentary bricks included with your first order!!!!! Act now!!!!!!! Sincerely, Linda L. Zern (Entrepreneur, Small Business Owner, President, Whip Cracking Overlord and CEO of Burn Baby Burn, Inc.) |
| A Thank You To Mrs. Teemant's Students From A Soldier's Mom (December 2010) Dear Mrs. Teemant and Students, I am the mother of Staff Sergeant Aric Zern of “Baker Company” of the “1-506,” which is a combat unit out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. This is a famous combat unit that many people might recognize from the HBO miniseries A Band of Brothers. They are presently serving in Southeast Afghanistan on the Pakistan/Afghan border. It’s a combat unit, which means that they are actively searching for and engaging “bad guys” (bomb makers, gun runners, terrorists, and drug dealers.) The soldiers go on patrol in the mountains of Afghanistan for weeks at a time. When the soldiers are on patrol they go without clean clothes, showers, or hot food, which means that when they come back to base and find packages, like the ones you sent, it makes them feel absolutely wonderful. Your gifts help remind them who they are fighting for, and that person is you and Afghan children like you. Your packages let the soldiers know that they haven’t been forgotten. As the mother of a soldier, who is far away and fighting in a very dangerous place, your gifts make me and my family feel wonderful and grateful. It helps me know that the sacrifices our combat soldiers make are all worth it, because you are the kind of Americans who don’t just think about helping others. You are the kind of Americans who actually get up and do good things for others—just like soldiers. Thank you so much. For security reasons SSG Zern can’t tell me very much about where he is or what he is doing, but he has shared a few things you might find interesting about Afghanistan. There is only one major paved highway in the entire country (making mail difficult to deliver); the average life expectancy is forty-seven years old; in the four months he’s been deployed he has seen three Afghan women; many of the people are descended from Genghis Khan’s Mongolian invaders; and most of the population cannot read or write. Finally, SSG Zern would like for you to know that of all the people in the world, who wish for peace, pray for peace, and long for peace on earth, no one desires it more completely than the American combat soldier. But until that time, please know, SSG Zern and his men will be standing guard in the night so that you and your family can sleep safely in your beds. Thank you again. Sincerely, Linda L. Zern (Proud Mother of an American Soldier) |
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