Linda L. Zern's Blog, page 26

HORSE SENSE

Horses are pretty sure that they are going to be eaten by wolves—every single day. It’s what they are. It’s how they think. Pretending that horses are big dogs or cuddly kittens doesn’t change horses into big dogs or cuddly kittens. Horses are horses are horses.

I know that seems obvious but, these days, you’d be surprised. People have gotten a little muddled when it comes to animals of all species, including their own. Dogs are like easy babies and real babies are a punishment.

Horses, on the other hand, are twelve hundred pound prey animals that worry about wolves and Mickey Mouse balloons—until they learn to surrender to someone “bigger,” “stronger,” and/or more “dominant.”

It’s psychology: horse not human.

Mommy horses discipline rowdy babies by chasing them until they are whipped: sides heaving, sweat slicked, and submissive. When a horse is ready to “submit” to a more dominant horse it will drop its head, turn toward the “boss” and lick its lips. A horse that submits is saying, “You are in charge. I trust you to watch for wolves, get me to fresh water, and protect me from Mickey Mouse balloon goblins.”

It’s magical: horse not warlock.

In the wild, young horses aren’t allowed to be out of control, selfish fools. Out of control, selfish, fool horses are dangerous to the herd. They distract the grownup horses from watching out for wolves and killer balloons. It isn’t allowed. I like horses. They make sense.

People, who think they know about horses from watching Disney movies, find the concept of round penning mindless and mean. It’s the human equivalent of time-out for teenager horses where humans push a horse around and around in an enclosed circle until he’s paying attention, ready to surrender, ready to join the herd, ready to become a valuable member of society.

It isn’t mean. It works, because horses are sensible—also humble.

In human society, selfish, fool, twerp, offspring put the entire herd at risk by distracting everyone from the real troubles of the human herd: the work of growing the herd, the necessity of educating the next generation not to be out of control and selfish, and the endless need to watch out for the prowling wolves ready to eat us all—not to mention those crazy balloon goblins.

When we treat animals like animals they can teach us a lot about the right way to live and be happy.

It’s simple: herd not twerp.

Linda (Mount Up) Zern

DONE

Aric married Lauren in March, two years ago. He’s the oldest and the last, and after he got married I knew that I could rest in the shade of the tree from which I cut the laurel wreath of my success as a mother.

Let me rejoice, I thought, and take up oil painting or green bean growing or apply to be on the Osceola county volunteer mounted posse. You don’t have to tell me twice. In my “retirement” from mothering I intended to collect free horses and try to turn them into the sorts of beasts that don’t run away when people fly helicopters at them.

When my first child was married I was given a book, informing me that my duties as the mother-of-the-newly-married-person should include ONLY the sharing of an occasional home remedy and a recipe—if I knew any—anything else constituted meddling. You don’t have to tell me twice. Nagging is exhausting and meddling is nagging’s ugly, warty cousin—also exhausting.

I would be too busy becoming Grandma Moses anyway.

Then the phone calls started coming.

“Mom, you’ve got to help me,” The newly married Heather said.

“Only if this is for a recipe and/or a remedy,” I said.

“How do you roll crescent rolls?”

“You mean the kind in the can?”

“Are there another kind?” She sounded a little bit miffed.

“Well, find the point on the triangle,” I instructed, wisely.

“The point? There are three points. It’s nothing but points,” she pouted.

“Yes, true. There are three points, but I don’t think that it’s an equilateral triangle.” Finally, a use for my college mathematics; I felt smug.

“What the flip are you talking about? I rolled one up and it looks like poop.”

“That can’t be right,” I reassured.

WHAT I SAID NEXT: “Just roll up the long edge, so that the little apex of the triangle is on top, and then bend it into a little crescent, moon shape.”

WHAT SHE HEARD: “Roll up the quadrihexial axis of doughy junk around a stick and fling it at the moon.”

“Okay Mom, listen I have to go now, because I have a nosebleed,” Heather said, sounding muffled and stuffy from the ensuing nosebleed.

“Okay dear. Just apply pressure to your nose, but don’t tilt your head back. Goodbye and good remedy.”

Regarding the book with tips for mothers of the newly married—my daughter (wise beyond her cooking skill level) finally reassured me, “Forget the book. The book is crap. That’s not our family. It will never be our family. Just be yourself that kind of meddling has always worked before.”

True. I can’t say we always roll our crescent rolls the way everybody else does, but we do have a certain style, and that’s always worked before.

Linda (Leave A Message) Zern

Keyed In

I have a blog called zippityzerns.blogspot.com. I write stuff for my zippityzern’s blog. Once in a while, I advertise a book, but I keep that greedy capitalism to a minimum.

The stuff I write for my blog is funny stuff, because that’s what seems to come out of my head, like sneezes in the pollen soaked spring—the funny stuff that is, not the snot (that was just a metaphor).

The hardest part of writing a blog is figuring out what code words you should list in the word code list so that people in Romania will be able to find your funny stuff in the haystack of blog stuff, funny and otherwise, that floats around the Internet like pollen looking for nostrils to torture.

Code words are key words or search words or label words with magic in them that capture the attention of readers, Romanians, also trolls.

On Mondays, I think code words work. On Thursdays, I’m sure they don’t. On Saturday, I suspect trolls of making my knuckles hurt. I don’t know why.

Based on my most “viewed” blog post (2995 page views) called “Hamster Infestation” with the key words—free wash machine, hamster, infestation, rat, and rodent removal—people seem attracted to the words free and infestation.

I keep trying to figure it out. Is it the possibility that I might be giving away an infested wash machine that intrigues people or that the infestation is hamster-ish in nature?

I’m still working on the formula for attracting an infestation of blog followers, so that I can point to my blog follower infestation and say, “Look, I am funny and people do like me and that’s why the people clog my blog like an infestation of hamsters in a free wash machine on the curb of life. Don’t you want to give me some money?”

Linda (Word Puzzle) Zern

The Stuff of Writing

Everyone is writing a book, has written a book, is planning to write a book, or has written a book that they are now trying to get someone/anyone to read.

It’s true. Even our bug man, who sprays vast amounts of poison on my house, attempting to control the mushrooming population of black and brown widows that live in every crack and gap of the exterior, is writing a book. Good grief, the spiders are probably writing books.

My bug man writes poetry.

Disclaimer: Please don’t misunderstand; I think everyone does have a story and should tell it, sing it, or write it. I do. I really do. A poetry writing bug man has a story. You can bet on it.

However, I am a little concerned over what I like to call craft and the practice of craft.

I was raised on great southern literature: “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” “The Yearling,” “Where the Red Fern Grows”, “As I Lay Dying,”” To Kill a Mockingbird” . . . I grew up wanting to write great southern literature or a wildly best selling porn novel, you know, whatever, and so I went to college to hone and grow and mold my craft at the feet of great writers of wordage and professors of word mongering.

Yikes.

I knew I was in trouble when one professor expressed wild enthusiasm and encouragement to a young man whose crazed character was having a discussion with himself over which animal he was most likely to have sex with, should he have sex with an animal.

“You shocked me. You surprised me. You’ve written something shocking and surprising. I’m shocked and surprised.”

Ahhhh! I raised my hand. Secretly, I had thought the piece poorly written and hard to follow. But I can secretly think that kind of stuff. I’m old and crabby. I asked, “I’m struggling a bit with deep point of view. Could we talk about that, please? I mean when this character has sex with a panda, should the panda have an accent?”

Absently, the teacher nodded and flipped his hand dismissively, possibly at me. We never did talk about deep point of view.

I sighed, and bought a helpful little book off of the Internet for six bucks called “Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View” by Jill Nelson. My college writing class cost one thousand, six hundred dollars, plus parking.

After eighteen years, here’s what I know about the craft and art of writing.

1. Do it. Put pen to paper. Keys to screen. Charcoal to cave wall. Do it.

2. Don’t rely on the tired rubric of ‘shocking or cutting edge equates to value,’ unless you’re just looking to make enough money to buy a private jet full of money . . . then shock away . . . and hope you beat out all those other writers trying to shock their way to the top. Note: Bestiality has been done; see the Bible.

3. Be your own teacher. No one wants you to get better the way you do. No one. Not even if you pay them.

4. Find your own way. In college you hear a lot of “panster” talk: write until it’s done, outlines are for panda lovers, you’ll know when it’s done, dream your way to the end. Bull. Note: Pansters are people who sit down and write by the seat of their pants or without any pants. I’m not quite sure. But they don’t plan much.

5. Truth: Pick up a book you love; look at the last page; note the number of pages; multiply by 250 words per page. That equals the number of total words. The middle is somewhere at the center when you crack the book in half. The beginning had better have someone hunting a panda through the Everglades with a laser and the end needs to have a panda/people wedding or aliens repelled by bullets made of human teeth. There is a formula. Figure it out. Larry Brooks has some excellent resources on the subject. Google him.

6. Get tough and prepare to have everyone you know roll their eyes when you say that you’ve written a book because they’re afraid 1) you’ll insist they read it or 2) they’ll read it and it will be better than their book.

Either way, write your book and let the bug man write his and the fan fiction chick and the guy from Jamaica who painted the house and the teachers who really helped and the fellow students with something dazzling to say and the mail lady who wishes she was a spy and the panda man and . . .

Linda (Pass the Keyboard) Zern

Hat Box

“Who the Bleep Did I Marry,” “ Evil Kin”, “Swamp Murders”, and the list goes on and on. They’re television shows that showcase true crimes. I love them. I learn so much. Sometimes I take notes.

From the show, “Who the Bleep Did I Marry,” I’ve learned to be suspicious of slick talking guys who paw through my panty drawer looking for my bank statements. I don’t actually know any slick talking guys who paw through my panty drawer looking for my bank statements, but I remain suspicious of them.

Watching “Evil Kin” keeps me on my toes. I have a checklist. Do the neighbors resemble zombies? Do the neighbors resemble people who resemble zombies? Do my evil kin resemble the neighbors? Check for fresh graves in the neighbor’s backyard. Don’t get caught.

But it’s “Swamp Murder”s that has given me the biggest heads up. What I’ve learned from “Swamp Murder”s is that the body always floats—sooner or later it floats—always. This isn’t just true of dead bodies; this is also true of a lot of stuff you’d rather stayed down there in the muckity, muck bottom of the swamp . . . like sales receipts.

Like sales receipts tucked away in the bottom of boxes, stacked in the garage, waiting for garbage day. Receipts for pointless, silly purchases that add little to no value to my life except that the purchase was pretty and I wanted it.

Those sales receipts.

They float. Like dead bodies thrown in a stinking swamp they bob right up to the top of the slimy water or the top of the box the hat came in.

I love hats. I love fancy hats you can’t wear in public, because the public who wore these fancy hats are all dead Victorians—not swamp murder dead—but still dead.

My husband does not appreciate my fancy hat problem. So I try not to stress him with my fancy hat problem. It’s better that way. Luckily, he’s an engineer so he rarely notices when I’ve added another hat to my fancy hat collection. He rarely notices that we have rugs or furniture or walls. Unless . . . he finds the stinking receipts.

My husband’s voice boomed from the garage.

“Hey, what’s this receipt for?”

“What receipt?”

“The receipt in this box, under these other boxes, under this stack of Goodwill stuff.”

I had a sinking feeling that I knew which receipt had floated to the surface of my fancy hat swamp.

“Receipt? What receipt?”

Delay, deflect, deny—I watch modern day politics, I know how to stall the inevitable congressional hearing.

“This receipt for a women’s white felt riding hat with lace veil.”

“I’m sorry what was that?”

His voice bounced and echoed a bit.

“Linda!”

Do you have any idea how many boxes were out in that garage? A stinking swamp’s worth, that’s how many, and just like on that show where people are always trying to dump the evidence in the middle of the dankest swamp that stupid receipt bobbed straight to the top of the cardboard heap.

Busted.

Linda (Hats Off) Zern

Becoming the YaYa

The smallest ones poop in their pants and stomp on the cat. They hate to get dressed. They pitch wild-eyed fits in public places. Often, they put rocks from the garden in their mouths and suck on them. They are immature, irresponsible, and self-centered.

When they feel like dancing, they dance. When they feel like yelling, they yell. When they want to eat, they want to eat now. Their names are Leidy, Hero, Scout, Griffin, Reagan, and Zachary.

They slightly older ones do all of the above, but they’re sneakier about it. They behave like spies ferreting out whacked out subversives, or they are subversives, ferreting out spies. We’ll see. They are Zoe, Emma, Conner, Kipling, and Sadie.

When number one grandchild, Zoe, was newly created, she couldn’t make the g, r, n, or d, sounds; so she called me YaYa. One day, she toddled around a corner, threw her arms in the air, flashed a toothy smile like a sunburst, and yelled, “YaYa.” And that was that. It’s what Greek children call their grandmothers. I remember asking my daughter, “When did Zoe become Greek Orthodox?”

Zoe turned my husband into a person I no longer recognize. My husband, the father of our four children, raised them on the following retorts:

When the kids said, "Dad, we're thirsty."

He said, "Swallow your spit."

When the kids said, "Dad, buy us a toy."

He said, "Play with sticks."

When the kids said, "Dad, can we . . . . ?"

He said, "No."

Now we can't let him wander off at Disney World alone with Zoe or any of the other big-eyed babies, or they'll come back with enough stuffed animals to animate a feature film. They sit and eat Hershey Kisses until I worry about their blood sugar levels. He lets them play with machetes and debates whether he should take them away or not.

I feel like shaking him and saying, "Just say no, man! Think of your legacy."

I don't say it of course, because I'm right there with him. I understand. There's time now and a little money. Time to stop doing everything and other really important stuff and twirl around the living room to Shall We Dance from The King and I. There's time to sit in the grass and teach the grandchildren how to blow the seeds from a dandelion's face. There's money for the silly stuffed animals that don't do anything. And there's the wisdom to know that a few Hershey kisses won't kill anyone.

It makes me a little sad that when we were parents we had to be so official and on duty all the time. But then I think, no, it worked out. It's a good system. Mommies and Daddies are for the hard stuff. And Grandmas and Grandpas are for the hard candy. It's a great balance. I loved being a mommy. And I adore being the YaYa.

A couple of the younger ones still can't blow the dandelion seeds off. They just spit on them. But when I show them how to gently blow the seeds and we watch them drift away on the breeze, they clap their hands and laugh, and I get to see the whole big world again—for the first time.


And for that, Heavenly Father, I am truly grateful.


Linda (The YaYa) Zern

Hills of White Sand

We don’t buy toys for our grandchildren. We buy dirt. Once or twice a year, we call the dump truck man and have him bring his giant belching, clanking dump truck full of white sand to our back yard, where he dumps it—as high and as deep as he can make it. We call it the Mountain, and then we unleash the grandkids on it.

“Go play on the Mountain,” we say.

“Don’t dig in that nasty horse poop. Go dig up the Mountain,” we instruct.

“Of course you can make a tiger pit on the Mountain,” we encourage.

The Mountain is worth its weight in cash, check, or charge.

The Mountain is a kid-friendly, adult-free zone. There is only one rule that governs the hill of white sand community.

“Thou shalt not throw sand.” That’s it.

We don’t tell them how deep to dig, or what size shovel they should use, or whether they should build a sand castle or a wombat nest. We don’t care if they cart sand around in buckets or build a sand fort or bury each other up to their neck bones.

“Thou shalt not throw sand.”

That single mountain commandment is specific and limited in scope. It is patterned after the Ten Commandments, “the [Mosaic] law has a modest function; the law is limited, and therefore the state is limited. The state, as the enforcing agency, is limited to dealing with evil, not controlling all men.” (Old Testament Student Manual; the page after 137; the part about rules we should all follow.)

As the official representative of “the state” in our backyard, I like the whole setup. I can sit in the sun, read a book, drift off to sleep, dream about Aruba, and eat grilled cheese sandwiches—most of the time, until someone throws sand, until someone EVIL throws sand.

Then the State steps in . . .

It always starts with a grubby kid on The Mountain standing up straight as a stick, hands clenched to fists, eyes squeezed to sandy slits, and mouth open—howling. One hand slowly extends like a ghost newly crawled from an open grave, finger pointing, “He/She/They threw sand,” the howling mouth howls. Inherent in the howl is the demand for justice.

Shading my eyes with my paperback, I say, “Wipe your eyes with your shirt tail.”

The howler tries to comply. Sand is ground deeper into sockets.

The howler screams, “Arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggg!”

Denials fly. “I didn’t do it. He did it. The dog did it. Mavis the Goat did it. A chicken did it. No one did it. It just happened.”

The howler, now the screamer, continues to wipe and wail.

At this point, the State is forced to put down her lemonade, egg salad, paperback, bonbons, umbrella, and intervene.

Evil is a pain in the eye sockets. It takes time and energy and attention to control “all men” also women. It costs money. It’s a drain on leisure activities. It’s depressing. It’s exhausting.

The Ten Commandments have gotten a bad rap over the years. (I blame wicked people.) It’s too sad really; because they are not a bad deal. Thou shalt not steal. Doesn’t tell you how to spend your money or how to earn it or how to use it or donate it or squirrel it away—all it says is that you shouldn’t take my money or your neighbor’s money with the great looking ass (as in donkey.)

That’s it. Thou. Shalt. Not.

Not a single thou shalt. People want to tell you that the Ten Commandments are repressive. They are wrong and probably are all about coveting your ass (as in donkey.)

Thou shalt pay income taxes to the federal government to be doled out by liars, cheaters, and thieves in a district hundreds of miles away from your front door or go to big, fat jail, that’s repressive.

Or as I like to say, “You let me know which one of those Ten Commandments you most object to, and I’ll know whether to hide my purse or my husband.”

Other than that, here’s your sand pail; the Mountain is out back.

Linda (Sand Storm) Zern

KILLER CASSEROLE

When our daughter-in-law, Sarah, was dating our youngest son, Adam, she worried. Strangely, she felt that his grazing like a wildebeest on Doritos and cheese dip was insufficient to maintain bones that did not bend. I understood her concern.

Adam was a famously picky eater. I remember raising him on pizza and multi-vitamins and his spine only got a little crooked.

Anyway, Sarah worried, so she made Adam start taking vitamins. He did, on an empty stomach, which made him throw up in my pristine, brand new truck, which he was driving because his girlfriend’s mother had run into his car (which was really our car) and crushed in the door, trying not to run over Sarah’s dog Dodger, so it was in the shop—the car not the dog.

So, Dodger the Dog made Adam throw up in my brand new truck.

Adam cleaned the truck out, neglecting to tell me about the vitamin vomit incident. A terrible, lingering smell ratted him out—also the family. That was the Monday the temperature topped out at 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

Tuesday, the high was 103 degrees and the faint smell of upchuck and Lysol swirled around my head like the Gulf Stream as I drove my lovely new truck to Dairy Queen.

Adam the Up-chucker! I insisted that he scrub the carpet again.

On Wednesday, the sickly sick smell got weirdly stronger as the heat threatened to suck the air out of my lungs. I accused Adam of being a poor carpet scrubber and a bad son.

By Thursday, the smell had magnified itself into the size and shape of a small malignant mushroom cloud of stink. I called a car detailer and made an appointment, letting Adam know that he would owe me for stinking up my new truck for all time and all eternity. The state of Florida set a high temp record on Thursday.

On our way to our granddaughter’s swim class Friday afternoon, my husband and I drove the truck to Saint Cloud community pool. The heat was stifling, and the smell inside the truck had started to resemble a poorly maintained landfill—gone really bad. The five-minute ride gave me a headache. I cursed Adam’s crooked spine.

Jumping from the dump on wheels, I yelled, “What did that kid throw up—his internal organs, infected with Ebola?”

My husband shook his head. “The smell is getting stronger and stronger. He cleaned up a smell that is growing? How is that possible?”

People frowned and pinched their noses as they walked by.

“People can smell us coming.”

“And going,” I sniped. “Poor truck. I’m going to kill Adam.”

He stuck his head back into the stench of the cab.

“Babe, don’t do it. Save yourself.”

I walked ten feet away for a fresh breath of air, next to the dumpster in the parking lot. “Let’s abandon the dump-mobile right here.”

“Before we do that,” he said, as he pulled something from under the passenger seat of the truck, “maybe we should get rid of this.” He turned slowly—a noxious, oozing explosion of festering germs in a casserole dish in his hands. “It’s a dish with your left over casserole from dinner at the Chevrier’s, from a week ago, under the seat, all week, in the heat, all seven days long.”

“Wow. That’s a casserole bomb,” I said.

Flies began to circle, a vulture drifted high overhead. I took the mess from Sherwood, walked slowly to the dumpster, and tossed it.

“What do we tell Adam?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing. We take this to our grave,” I paused, considering. “We never tell Adam we’ve been blaming him for the slowly festering dish of casserole bits under the front seat. Never. Ever.”

And we did take it to our graves—sort of.

Linda (New Car Smell) Zern

Celebrification

“YaYa mean!” Griffin Henry (age 2) relating his personal opinion of me.

I sighed.

“Don’t fall in the fire pit, little boy, with the fluffly, white hair and polyester shirt.” That was it; that’s what I had said to earn my grandson’s disdain. For that I was called names.

I’m the YaYa. I’m the mean one. My husband (the Poppy) is the family celebrity. Of course, he’s the guy with endless supplies of Twix and Pepsi, the guy who lets the grandchildren run wild through our lives.

I walked into the office to find a phalanx of children taping away at an endless line of computers. They were playing something called “Animal Jam” or “AJ” in the vernacular. Poppy sat in the middle of the tapping frenzy, tossing chocolate kisses to grandchildren like a walrus trainer at Sea World. Shoulders had started hunch, spines to curve.

I shouted, “Okay, that’s it. Everybody outside. Get some vitamin D. Attempt to straighten your backbones. Go. Go.”

“Poo-poo, YaYa!” Griffin Henry said. Poo-poo. It’s the worst word he knows—so far.

Later, I discover the lot of them at the sand hill. They’d dug a giant hole, run a garden hose to it, and filled it to the brim with water. It was like a massive open strip mine. Kids blasted each other with water and mud. I estimated the cleanup would require two hours and a Shop Vac.

“Who said you could turn that water on?”

“Poppy!” they chorused.

“Poo-poo, Poppy,” I muttered to myself.

My husband is the celebrity. He never says no, agrees with every wild scheme, finances every whim, and bribes with goodies. He’s the president cutting the fool on Buzz Feed. Me? I’m the libertarian saying, “Sure. Sure. You refused to wear your shoes, stepped on stinging thistles that you were warned about, and now what are YOU going to do about that?”

“YaYa mean!”

Recently, our eleven grandchildren came pouring into our house saying, “Hi. Where’s Poppy?”

Sighing, I pointed and said, “In the office. Throw away your candy wrappers.” They stampeded.

I went to find the Shop Vac.

Linda (Mean as a Snake) Zern

JITTERY MUCH?

Reports of my imagined death are false—also incorrect. I’m not dead.

To recap: I am not dead. I’m just concentrating really hard.

Several years ago, my husband couldn’t instantly get a hold of me via my cell phone, because it was dead, the cell phone. NOT ME. When he couldn’t immediately contact me from Kuala Lumpur or Detroit or Walmart or wherever he was wandering around, to let me know he’d forgotten to take out the garbage or something equally informative, he panicked.

So he called our daughter, Heather.

Who called our daughter, Maren.

Who told her friends at school that I’m a hermit and a nut.

Who called my husband, her father.

Who called our daughter, Heather, again.

Who called each other, over and over, whipping each other into a jittery frenzy.

Heather finally broke the cycle of hysteria by calling her friend, Maria, and saying, “I’m at work. Could you drive out to my parent’s house and check on my AGED mother?”

Maria!

Marie who lives in a whole other village, Marie, who got in her car, drove to our country home (also our city home) and finding all the doors, window, and portholes open assumed that I had been eaten by cats—also raccoons.

I was in my office—working.

Proving that what we’ve got here is a hefty case of the jitters.

While it is true that I live alone a great deal of time, I am not a complete idiot. I try to wait until my husband is home to clean the chimney, re-organize the hayloft, chop down trees, or check the crawlspace for expired squirrels.

And as far as being murdered in my sleep by criminal types, I believe that most criminal types are stupid people, the kind of people that get stuck in chimneys. And if I can’t outsmart some nimrod stuck in my chimney then shame on me.

That’s why I sleep with the cat. Plan A is that I will throw the cat at the stupid intruder and make my escape out of the bathroom window. At which point I will run to the ditch out front and hide behind the enormous stump that the county hasn’t carted away from storm damage. It’s the main reason I haven’t called the county about the eyesore stump by the road. That stump is part of my master escape plan. I have a detailed schematic drawn up.

Please note: That stump has been hauled off since I first reported on the above foolishness, thus changing plan A to plan B.

Unfortunately, plan B has me hiding in my neighbor’s barn in my *scanties. So sometimes I sleep in my bathrobe with my cell phone in the pocket, except that my cell phone is quite often “dead,” thus kicking off jittery meltdowns in the first place. Go figure.

Linda (Chimney Sweep) Zern

*Scanties is a southern word for clothing you don’t want to be caught wearing while hiding in a ditch.