The Battle Hymn of the Ermas

An Army of Ermas: Making you spew coffee on your monitor since 2009 2010 what seems like a long time ago. The Ermas salute Stacey Graham, Friend, Founder, and Fearsome Leader.

The Battle Hymn of the Ermas

(Who let the doggerel out?!)

(With customary solemnity by the Captain & Mrs. Captain Mullis)

The call went forth from mountain-top
To take the mighty pen
And wield against the sadditudes
To make them laugh again

The answer came from far and wide
Across this terra firma
"We come! We come! With flashing gags!
The Army of the Erma!"

And so they came, from every land
The innocent and racy,
To answer Zombie Nature's call
Obeying General Stacey

With limericks and doggerel,
With punchlines and with giggles.
In bold italic Arial
And small handwritten squiggles.

She sent them out against the Dour
To fill the world with laughter
And out they went good willingly
Although they didn't hafter.

With jokes and japes and cheesy puns
Hilarity ensued
While much of it was family-style
Some was blushed with lewd.

So every year on August ninth
Our wine in sippy cup
We raise a toast to General Stace
And put our bottoms up!

Resolution Revolution

Now that we're two dress sizes away from having to form our resolutions for the New Year, I'd like to observe a moment of sarcasm for last year's goals. Looking back over this list from last year, I realize that I did accomplish one thing. See Resolution #3. I discovered that Taco Tiara handles the job nicely. (However they're not the A-Team for Leprechauns or buckets of gold)

The Resolution Trend is upon us, and much like the leg-warmer trend of the seventies, it crawls up your leg and leaves you with cold feet. But if Resolving is the thing to do, I may as well jump right in and point out my shortcomings. Lord knows if I don’t do it, the teenagers will.

Feel free to jump right in. The rules are simple: No setting goals that involve Paris Hilton in appearance or scope, no setting goals that involve such a vast amount of weight loss that a colon cleanse is indicated, and no setting goals that will prove detrimental to your overall lifestyle - honestly, it will not make you a better person to bake like Paula Deen. You’ll just spend more time in the kitchen, you’d have to expand to more extensive stretchy pants, and while you’re at it take a look at a recent picture. The woman is obviously a zombie. I haven’t seen eyes like that since Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ruled the airwaves.

So, with our ground rules, if not our sanity, intact, here are my Resolutions for the year:

1. To eat at least one meal without sharing with the dogs. How many bites does it take before the Labrador remembers that he still doesn’t like olives?

2. To go ahead and take the batteries out of the TV remote/game controller/digital camera before the boys beat me to it. Personal satisfaction is the name of the game here.

3. Find one easy-to-prepare meal that everyone in the family will eat. Perhaps I’ll also go in search of Leprechauns and buckets of gold.

4. To come home from any destination (including a trip to the mailbox) at least once without heading immediately to the bathroom. Honestly, predictability is so last year.

5. To go a full day without complaining about the speed of my Internet access, all the while bemoaning the days when people had to rely on the Pony Express or fax machines to deliver information.

6. Not to make more resolutions that I can feasibly accomplish. Which I automatically failed to do in Resolution Number One. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the dog a sandwich. Extra pastrami, no olives.

The Beast Within

Aunt Nette is like a busybody savant. She can tell the last time you called your mother, how you treat your children, and can rate your love life on a scale of one to ten just by listening to you order hash browns at the Waffle House.

“Scattered and smothered,” I told the waitress, slipping the menu into the metal holder behind the napkin dispenser.

Looking across the table, I’m tempted to apply the same order to Aunt Nette. She is scraping egg off the laminated menu with a polished nail on a finger laden with hand-me-down diamonds, and lecturing me on my child-raising abilities.

“You should call more often. I never hear important news until it’s too late.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

She flicked away a piece of petrified yolk. “I hear the baby is walking now.”

The baby is 20 years old. “Okay so maybe I’m slow with updates. Follow me on Twitter and you can read everything in sentences short enough to slap right on the gossip chain.”

“What those boys need is more parental involvement.” She dipped her paper napkin in her water glass and began to polish her fork.

“The last time I had parental involvement with these kids, I lost three lives."

"You should use caution in dealing with children."

"All I did was pick up a video game controller. Then I blew myself somewhere over the rainbow in a blinding blue flash."

The only reason my children aren’t listed as serial killers in police records country-wide is that there are still those officials who refuse to admit the impossibility of a zombie apocalypse.

"You do know they’ve been studying the best method for slaughtering the undead.”

“They were Boy Scouts. They want to be prepared.”

“They’re prepared for a swarm of mercenaries, an invasion by aliens, and a world-ending zombie attack. What they’re not ready for is an English test or a quiz on fundamental dinner etiquette.”

“You could probably learn some things from them. Remember when I stayed the weekend at your house? The boys and I found a new respect for each other.”

“Oh, really? And how are you a better person since that weekend?”

She sipped coffee from a stoneware cup leaving Pink Poodle lipstick on the rim, crossed her beige stockinged ankles under the table, and leaned forward with a prim smile to perform an airborne example on a pretend video game controller.

"I beast at Borderlands.”

Hippy is Not a Guy with Long Hair

I’m like Shakira--my hips don’t lie; even when threatened. Don't ask me how I know.

However, without much coaxing they’re willing to reveal every bite of doughnut I’ve had in the past ten years. Try to stuff them into a pair of pantyhose and they’ll also let on what happened to the last box of Thin Mints, the banana bread the neighbor brought when the Captain was flu-bound, and the six dozen zombie cupcakes intended for the third grade Halloween party.

My hips and I have never had a very good relationship. All I long for is to see daylight between my thighs one time before I die. On the other hand my hips fantasize of a day when we can coexist on the buffet deck of the Love Boat without me snarling every time a skinny chick sucks down a piece of cheesecake.

These days they’re spreading the dream to my chins, who have rebelled and resorted to disguising cupcake crumbs in their folds for a late night snack. I’m so nearsighted, I thought it was just stray whiskers. If I ever locate my bifocals, I intend to act sternly in regards to my personal appearance even if I have to read up on excavation techniques to dislodge a certain Hostess Twinkie that's been missing in action for several days.

When I was fifteen, I was all shin bones and shoulder blades. Now I’m fifty and I’ve discovered that love handles are the new hipbones. I used to sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” but now I have to admit that my head and toes lost touch long before I discovered the beauty of a long distance relationship. My knees are still active, though. They take every possible opportunity to go out. So these days, I’m more likely to sing “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” and hope I don’t lose anything important when I stand up.

Last week I wanted to buy a pair of hip hugger jeans, but I had to get three estimates on the location of my navel to determine the right size. I was going to wear them with a halter top just like the old days, but my kids hit me with a restraining order, the comic strip character Cathy came out of retirement to stage an intervention, and the government declared the entire Head to Toe area unsafe. I’m expecting FEMA to approve my application for natural disaster assistance any day now and Naval engineers to construct an overflow device to be worn around my waist.

In the meantime, I’m investing heavily in Krispy Kreme; specifically Cruellers, Raspberry Filled and Chocolate Glazed. Because even though hips don’t lie, maybe they can be bribed to keep the sugar coated truth to themselves.

Here Comes Da Judge, There Goes My Lunch

After two days of fun and festivities starring on I Dream of Jury Duty, I’ve come to the startling realization that a jury of my peers is the last thing I want to come across if I’ve done something bad enough to land me in the little gray room where the man in charge wears a black dress.

When I think of my peers, I’m conjuring up images of Penelope Cruz with a Wal-Mart wardrobe.

Would you believe Megan Fox’s non-anorexic sister?

How about Barbara Bush sporting chubby stretch jeans and a maternity top?

Apparently a jury of my peers is likely to be those folks shuffling around Wal-Mart in backless slippers in the wee morning hours, waving a denture cream coupon at a frightened clerk and checking to see if the lite beer is on sale. Or the folks who would have to take donations to collect a full set of teeth who are trying to get the family rate at the cattle barn section of the county fair.

A glance at the photo album on the bottom of the stack is enough to remind me that our family reunion looks more like Night of the Zombie Prom than a Sunday School gathering. A single glance at a table of my relatives--Aunt Rhoda is wiping gravy from her mustache and Uncle Bob can never remember to secure all the fasteners on his overalls—tells me that I’d rather head straight down to the Boogeyman’s Castle than expose my private business to a panel of these folks. To me, the theme is Bring In The Clowns, but to the side of Law & Order, Aunt Rhoda is the author of somebody’s Bill of Rights. It’s hard enough to shop for Christmas gifts for these people; to think they could be the guardians of freedom is like expecting Paula Deen to preside over a Weight Watcher’s Convention.

Now I’ve witnessed a set of jury peers with my very own peepers and the experience left me with a new appreciation for the law. Before I help myself to any more zucchini from the neighbor’s garden, I’m going to stop and consider what kind of splash the evidence will make when presented to the jury. I wish I could say the same thing for the hefty lady that showed up in court to get her photos back from a stalker friend. This was the kind of cheesecake that rots the cherries before you ever get to the graham cracker crust.

But even after my personal experience in the jury end of the hygiene pool, I am a supporter of Freedom, Truth, and the Right to Bare Arms.

But now I know why Justice is blind.

Summer Shorts

It's thunderstorm season in the South. I’m afraid if it rains much more, BP will send a representative to dump a quart of 10W40 in my yard.

They don’t play Pomp and Circumstance when you graduate from the school of hard knocks. But they don't play Another One Bites the Dust, either.

Is half a mind a zombie snack?

For Mother’s Day, I was at a restaurant where a stranger was handing out roses to all the women. I wonder if he’s going to give out power tools for Father’s Day.

I’m at the age where my packaging label should read, “Some Settling May Occur.” On the back it would say, “Things in the mirror are larger than they appear.”

Now that I’ve turned 50, offering to slip into something more comfortable isn’t really a promise. It’s a threat.

Why is it that a kid who can memorize a 37 key code to wipe out a zombie apocalypse on a video game is puzzled by the Start button on the washer?

Different age people like different kinds of cars. My boys like the kind that get from zero to sixty in a nanosecond. I like the ones that can remember where I was going.

My teenage son asked me, “How long does it take for wood to become petrified?” I answered, “As long as it takes it to teach the twigs how to drive.”

The last time I tried on swimsuits in front of a dressing room mirror, I realized something. I’d have to use Google Earth to get a panoramic picture of my butt.

Never wear a dangly charm bracelet when you have diarrhea.

If I can shop for everyone in my family without taking them along to try on clothes, why do I never come home with the right size underwear for me?

My dentist put my last crown in place with a nail. I didn’t know whether to write him a check or charge it to my Home Depot account.

Christmas Claws

I figure it’s time to take down the Christmas tree when the lights haven’t worked for two weeks, there’s a mysterious lump under the tree skirt that resembles petrified reindeer poop, and local landscapers offer to buy the pile of mulch in the corner of my living room.

I hate to take down the Christmas tree because as long as it is in the room, that corner is as close to decorated as it is any time during the year. I have teenage boys in the house. Once the tree is gone, that spot will automatically give way to a pile of cast off T shirts, sixteen pairs of old tennis shoes, and a large tabby cat. Actually, the cat may be lost somewhere in the maze of branches. I haven’t seen him since before the lights stopped working, but every now and then I can hear the angel on top purr. I think she's had a little too much catnip.

When the breeze of the ceiling fan caused a pile of pine needles the size of a sand dune to settle on the floor, the man who promised to love, honor, and teach the teenagers to drive crossed his arms and regarded the Christmas tree with raised eyebrows.

“It's gotta go.”

I came up beside him, licking the sprinkles off the last holiday cupcake. “It could be a Presidents Day tree. You could hang little pictures of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln on it.”

“The kind of pictures you find on small bills? What if I make it easy and just slip you a twenty?”

“What if I go to the mall and take out my New Year's anxieties on the clearance racks?”

“I don’t have enough presidents for that sort of stimulus package.”

“Well, how long does it take for wood to petrify?” I mused.

“Why do you ask?”

“Maybe we could leave it in the corner all year and pass it off as a sculpture.”

“If dead plants make great sculptures, we have an entire art museum around here.”

The man had a valid point. I’ve killed enough vegetation to decorate a dozen zombie weddings.

I reached for a drooping branch. "According to tradition, all of the decorations should be put away before the New Year starts.

A paw shot out of the center of the tree, snatched the marshmallow snowman off of my cupcake with one claw and disappeared without a sound. A pool of dry needles puddled on the carpet at my feet.

We stepped back a safe distance from the tree. "Let's leave it," I said handing him the tattered remains of the cupcake. "I think the ghost of Christmas past lives in there and he means business."

Resolutions: Doggies & Potties & Zombies, Oh My!

The Resolution Trend is upon us, and much like the leg-warmer trend of the seventies, it crawls up your leg and leaves you with cold feet. But if Resolving is the thing to do, I may as well jump right in and point out my shortcomings. Lord knows if I don’t do it, the teenagers will.

The rules are simple: No setting goals that involve Paris Hilton in appearance or scope, no setting goals that involve such a vast amount of weight loss that a colon cleanse is indicated, and no setting goals that will prove detrimental to your overall lifestyle - honestly, it will not make you a better person to bake like Paula Deen. You’ll just spend more time in the kitchen, you’d have to expand to more extensive stretchy pants, and while you’re at it take a look at a recent picture. The woman is obviously a zombie. I haven’t seen eyes like that since Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ruled the airwaves.

So, with our ground rules, if not our sanity, intact, here are my Resolutions for 2010:

To eat at least one meal without sharing with the dogs. How many bites does it take before the Labrador remembers that he still doesn’t like olives?

To go ahead and take the batteries out of the TV remote/game controller/digital camera before the boys beat me to it. Personal satisfaction is the name of the game here.

Find one easy-to-prepare meal that everyone in the family will eat. Perhaps I’ll also go in search of Leprechauns and buckets of gold.

To come home from any destination (including a trip to the mailbox) at least once without heading immediately to the bathroom. Honestly, predictability is so 2009.

To go a full day without complaining about the speed of my Internet access, all the while bemoaning the days when people had to rely on the Pony Express or fax machines to deliver information.

Not to make more resolutions that I can feasibly accomplish. Which I automatically failed to do in Resolution Number One.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the dog a sandwich. Extra pastrami, no olives.

Grinch, Interrupted

Christmas is a time to count my blessings. I count them at Thanksgiving, too, but that list tends to cover an expansive list of food items, many of which are covered in gravy. At Christmas I’m able to concentrate on the things that make my Grinch’s heart grow. (While I snack on food items filled with sugar and chocolate chips. Just for the record, I’m extra thankful for the people around me who do wonderful things with sugar and share them with me.)


I’m thankful the neighbor abandoned his Labrador when he moved away, because I found out that my husband was just teasing when he said another animal in the house meant I had to sleep in the yard. However, I’m hopeful that I won’t have to test that rule again this year.

I’m thankful for my husband’s eye-opening red flowerdy Hawaiian shirt, even though it caused the teenagers to christen him with the nickname Captain Spiffy, because buying a new shirt is a lot easier way to cope with turning 50 than purchasing a new sportscar or a supermodel. When you have three dogs, a supermodel is overkill. And hard to fit into the budget, although it's probably cheaper to keep her in kibble.

I'm thankful the dog was sick last week because this week he feels fine for Christmas. Unless he eats another angel.

I'm also thankful for a husband that let me sleep through the late night episode of the dog being sick. Husbands who are handy with a cleanup bucket are hard to find.

I'm thankful that I fell down the stairs last month, because Captain Spiffy insisted I buy new shoes. With treads.

Even though it was an adventurous journey (involving railroad tracks and saturated kidneys) to get to that point, I’m thankful the doctor put Bill on a restricted diet, because now I fit into my jeans.

I'm thankful that I broke my casserole dish because I don't have to make the sweet potatoes for Christmas dinner. I hate to cook and peel sweet potatoes, although I'll miss munching on the mini marshmallows. (I’m very thankful for mini marshmallows.)

I'm thankful that my pink felt feather-trimmed, high-heeled Christmas stocking is empty because I still have hope that Santa comes to see girls who have earned permanent placement on the naughty list. And I'm pretty sure he didn’t hear what I said when I found out the dog was sick.

I'm thankful to have a howling coyote and a five-legged zombie in my Nativity scene, because that means the boys are safe at home to practice their pranks.

I'm thankful that I headed back into the traffic and crowds to go Christmas shopping with Son Number One because now he has a job, and I got to see him spending his money instead of mine. Also, he bought gas for my car, which is very thoughtful even though I have to pay him back.

Most of all, I’m thankful that I was seated near the obnoxious loudmouth at dinner last night. Because the more he groused about the texture of his roast beef, the complimentary pancakes he received, the cost of his food, the service, the manager, and eventually the line at the cash register, the more I realized that the things I thought were my troubles all along, were the things I could count as extra blessings.

So thanks Scrooge. You’re the star on my tree this year.

And I’m thankful that I didn’t sling a biscuit at your head after all. Because I’m pretty sure Santa would have noticed.

Merry Christmas.

CSI Poinsettia Homocide

I love Christmas--known around my house as the Festival of Poinsettia Murder. It’s a ritual I indulge in every year. What says Merry Christmas better than a spray of bare, wilted stems and a blanket of cast-off red petals covering the floor in a crunchy carpet?

To my way of thinking it’s more manslaughter than murder anyway. It’s not like I plan the death like I plan the menu for Christmas dinner, which is an unsettling, but comforting, thought. My Christmas dinner, while not gourmet fare in scope or intent, might make for happy times and give the old stretchy pants a workout, but does not often leave bodies in its wake. My bent toward Poinsettiacide is a well-known, but lesser-appreciated talent.

So if it’s the rituals that make the holiday season important and cement the ties that bind into place, I owe it to my family to kill the holiday Poinsettia.

So this season will see all my familiar and comforting rituals: the manger scene whose assembled cast expands daily to include snowmen, stray wisemen and an occasional ox or ass from long lost nativity sets, and at least one zombie action figure; the Christmas tree decorated around the bottom with an assortment of bells and wind chimes to let me know when the kitties have staged a daring raid on the festive gift bags, and a crumpled Poinsettia that holds my hopes and dreams that this will be the year that Santa finally delivers a green thumb.

Because once the wrapping paper lies in mangled piles and Christmas lights wind themselves back into tangled knots, hope is what Christmas is all about.

Ferret-ocity

*One more in the Halloween Blog Carnival. Because I can.*

I read in the paper that a man tried to filch a ferret by carrying the creature out of the store concealed in his pants. From what I know about ferrets, that’s going out of the safety zone for a Halloween costume. Without too much bother, it could give a whole new meaning to the term “rip off.”

I’ll go all out in a race for the last macadamia nut cookie, especially if it’s generously decorated with white chocolate chips, but there are some forms of art I'd rather not suffer for. And while I’m a fan of creative Halloween costuming, I haven’t reached (or passed) the point in my life when I’m willing to take one in the naughty bits for the top prize at the party.

Forget your Freddie Krugers and your numerical Saw catalogue of characters. (This outfit was brought to you by the numbers 1-6, your local hardware store, and Roger Ebert with a big thumbs down.) What could be scarier that a man dancing up to your doorstep with a frightened ferret fighting for a breath of fresh air stuffed down one leg of your Halloween zombie pants?

Call me crazy, but a costume that could result in a row of itching stitches across your butterfly tattoo is going beyond the call of duty for Halloween. Some things aren’t worth going through for a fun size Snicker bar.

And while chances are good for winning a prize in the local costume contest, you have to consider the possibly that your pants could explode at an inconvenient time and attack the judges on a crazed candy rampage. Seems like any loot this guy gets, he’d have to stuff down his right leg to appease the beast within.

I think I’ll stick with the costume I have. I’m fifty years old and sport a body designed by Ben & Jerry. Shovel me into a pair of hip huggers and a belly shirt and I’ll send ferret boy running back to the pet store for reinforcements.

And Michael Jackson thought he had a Thriller night!

School's In, I'm Out

I have a friend who can tell when school starts by how many of her kids get sick. If somebody throws up, mark your calendars for cafeteria duty because school is in session.

My kids are older now, but there are still definite clues that let me know it’s time to obey the speed limit between the flashing yellow signs. I can tell school is in by the vacuum in my wallet. If I try to put a dollar in the bill section and it hits a jet stream that carries it directly to a slow-moving boy dragging $400.00 worth of school books across the kitchen floor toward the back door, classes have started.

My guys go to community college across town. At least I think it’s a college. The way they hit me up for lunch money, I’m beginning to suspect they are supporting the efforts of a five start restaurant. Any day now, I’m expecting to catch one of them sneaking up the back stairs after dark with crème brulee on his breath.

Schedules are different at college. When the kids were in grade school, I could count on at least six hours a day without having to watch a Barney video or share my Girl Scout cookies with anybody except the dog. These days, young people blow in and out of my house at random intervals, changing my easy-listening radio station to brain-twister funk, and killing larger than life video game zombies on my big screen TV. It’s hard to keep up, but I’m not entirely sure all the kids that come through my living room are original family members. In my heart of hearts I believe we upgraded to the Supersized Family Plan when math class let out.

Now I find out that my guys will be done with this semester a month before Christmas. That means I’ll have to spend the time I had budgeted for wringing my hands and begging Santa for travelers checks by restocking the refrigerator and establishing a time-share program for the computer. Things turned ugly enough when I established the “If you’re old enough to shave, you’re too old for Trick-or-Treating” rule. I don’t know if I can stand having a house full of young men who think Peace on Earth means ridding the world of the undead.

Hopefully if I'm good, Santa will spirit me away to the Island of Misfit Toys. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long winter.

Let's Play Chicken

It’s not that my son is a picky eater; it’s just that he’d starve to death before the noon rush at any grocery store in America.

He once perused the morning buffet at a luxury hotel restaurant (We have teenage boys. To us luxury means any hotel that doesn’t make us pay a security deposit when we check in.)for three quarters of an hour before demanding to be taken to McDonald’s. Nothing says Breakfast of Champions like a McBiscuit with the outside crust peeled away.

His specifications are exact. He does not eat ugly food.

Ugly food is defined as any food that comes in contact with any other food or food-like item during its processing or preparation. Therefore my kitchen is under constant supervision. It’s like living with a member of the Board of Health who doesn’t clean his room or brush his teeth until threatened with government action.

“Mom,” Son #2 peered in the pot of steaming, frothing liquid and wrinkled his nose. “Are you boiling chickens again?”

“Sure am.”

“Didn’t you just boil a chicken at aunt KJ’s house this weekend?”

“Yes, I was helping her out in the kitchen.”

Son 2, in disgust, “Do you have some sort of addiction to chicken boiling?”

“Jeffrey, I’m going to make chicken salad.”

“Are you sure this isn’t some kind of cult ritual or something?”

“I’m sure. Back away from the chicken. It needs to boil another hour.”

“Do we need to have an intervention?”

“No. This is not a bizarre ceremonial rite. You have to stew it before you can make other things with it.”

“Like what? Some sort of nasty chicken potion to smear on your victims? Does it eat their flesh? You know, like zombie chickens.”

“Son, if you don’t like chicken salad, you don’t have to eat it.”

“You’re trying to trick me. You’re going to feed me some kind of boiled chicken serum to make me do your will.”

“That’s ridiculous. I create the potion for making you do my will out of the parts I take out of the chicken.”

“What?”

“Like the heart.”

“Are you lying?”

“Yes, I am. I’m not going to waste a perfectly good bird just to make you obey me. Besides, it doesn’t work.”

He pondered this tidbit. “That’s because I’m not eating it. I shouldn’t even be breathing in the fumes. They’re probably poisonous. Or hallucinogenic.”

I didn’t know words with that many syllables until I was in college. “There are pizzas in the freezer. I don’t care if you eat chicken salad or not.”

Where’s the feet? Are you wearing a chicken claw around your neck?”

“For goodness sakes. That’s the Mother’s Day necklace you and your brother gave me. The pictures are a little fuzzy, that’s all.”

“Sure, Mom, if that’s your real name. I’ll be wanting to see some identification at dinner.”

“Get out of the kitchen.”

“Oh, now you’re worried, aren’t you? You’ll probably try and disguise the chicken in my food.”

All the boy eats is frozen pizza and Captain Crunch. It’s hard to disguise chicken parts as rogue Crunch Berries.

“That’s right. Beware of anything you eat or drink. It may be contaminated with chicken broth.”

“That’s it. I’m making a pizza.”

It’s amazing how people who won’t eat freshly thawed meat by-products will roast a frozen, artificially colored and flavored disc to a golden brown and slam it down like filet mignon just because it says pizza on the box.

I think I’ll make some chicken soup. They say it cures what ails you. And in this case what ails me is a free-range teenager who’s chicken to try new food.

Dog Days

While I chased word count, Son One, The Zombie Slayer, whiled away his time decapitating The Undead.

“I killed another one,” he announced in the same tone of voice Howard Cosell would say, “another knockout for Mohammed Ali.”

He gestured smugly toward the TV. “I cut his head off and he can’t see me. Now he’s wandering around the swamp attacking cattails.”

I left a participle dangling while I paused. You can kill the undead? I realize we’ve made great strides in modern medicine, but this seemed a bit farfetched, even with insurance.

I paused in my frenzied attack on the keyboard and peered at the television screen. Zombies were meandering about their virtual world, fencing with random inanimate objects. “Why don’t you finish him off?”

Meanwhile the headless nonhuman took a futile swing at some nearby foliage. A battle ensued during which the zombie filled the air with random slashes from a deadly blade before tripping over a strand of swamp grass.

“I can’t do it. He’s just too cute.”

This from the kid who teased me unmercifully when I cried at the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials. He also remained unmoved when the uncles took out the barn—and themselves—in the movie Secondhand Lions. But let a herd of headless zombies thrash about in the tall grass and his heart turns to mush.

I shrugged and returned to my composition. Everybody has a purpose. Mine is writing essays about unsuspecting family members. His is cleansing the world of the undead.

About that time the dog entered the room, circumnavigated the video game area like Magellan on a world tour, heaved a sigh, and collapsed on the floor at my feet. If he were a teenager he would have rolled his eyes and sighed, “There’s nothing to do in this house.”

I cleared my throat. “Back in the real world, the dog wishes someone would take him on a walk.”

Son One paused in the midst of mayhem. “I’d do it Mom, but I’m at a critical point. I must turn people into chickens.”

I saved my document and retrieved the big Lab’s leash from a hook near the door. “C’mon fella,” I said as he pulled himself up like the Kraken rising from the ocean floor.

About that time I heard frantic barking and saw a virtual dog run up to greet my son’s character onscreen. He was cute enough, but didn't have near the tail action that comes with a real life Labrador.

“You can play with a fake dog, but you can’t take your lifelong companion on a romp?”

“There’s a big difference, Mom.” Son One paused as he decapitated another zombie. This one doesn’t chew up my shoes if I forget to take him outside.

“Maybe not. But this one can leave surprises you can’t get off with a power blaster.”

Son One pushed a button and the screen went blank. He met the dog at the door and they disappeared down the driveway together. If the boy were canine, his tail would be wagging, too.

It just goes to show that you can always improve yourself with a little Lab work.

Happy Birthday, Ry.

Turning Over a New Loaf
by Amy Mullis

My plan for the New Year was to introduce a wholesome influence into the family’s diet, but it’s impossible to provide healthy meals when one child thinks eating tofu is a Fear Factor challenge and another child only eats food that is covered in pizza sauce or stays crunchy even in milk. They rejected whole wheat bread like it was liver loaf, and the time I bought skim milk at the grocery store, I got voted off the kitchen island. Cooking healthy meals for the family shouldn’t be like an episode from Survivor: Spinach Casserole.

My kids are convinced that broiled chicken is a bird that stayed in the farmyard without SPF 30 and died from exposure. Their idea of fine dining is to supersize their fries. I can’t imagine where they got this attitude. Sure, I believe the road to down below is paved with exercise videos and sugar substitute, but that’s just geographical fact. I haven’t eaten a dessert in six months that wasn’t presorted into 100 calories packages.

“What’s for supper?” Son One strolled into the kitchen licking the icing off a cinnamon bun and tearing open the paper on a candy bar so sticky it looked like it was made of library paste. This kid’s idea of healthy eating is frosting a salad with honey-mustard dressing.

“I thought we’d combine two of your favorite food groups for something new.”

“We’re having Italian and Mexican? Cool!”

“Those aren’t food groups. They’re nationalities. We’re going to have a healthy meal.”

“Did somebody give you a bushel of cast off zucchini again?” Zucchini is the stray cat of the vegetable world. It always shows up on my doorstep at dinnertime.

“You’re so suspicious,” I said, nonchalantly raking chopped zucchini into the dog’s bowl. “I thought I’d make that baked chicken they had at church.”

“You mean Death Chicken? Count me out.” He peered into the freezer and extracted a pizza that had been in limbo so long the pepperoni was petrified and the cheese came in crystals instead of shreds.

“It’s not really death chicken. We just call it that because it’s so easy to make that a lot of times we’ll take it to someone who’s had a death in the family.”

“Yeah. Ever wonder what they died from?”

“Probably from eating zombie food that was in the freezer so long all the vitamins turned to dust.” I managed to sneak a few small zucchini out of the bag under cover of the answering snort.

He peeled off the wrapper and shoveled a layer of ice from the crust. My kids think perma frost is a basic building block of the food pyramid. “What do I set the oven on for undead?”

“Very funny. It wouldn’t hurt you to try something that’s good for you.” Just then the dog wandered through the kitchen to check his dish for food molecules left over from breakfast. He picked up a zucchini slice, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully and spit it out on the floor.

“See, even Bo hates vegetables.” Son One plopped the pizza down on the oven rack. It sounded like he’d launched a hubcap at the dumpster.

I put my hands on my hips. It was time for decisive action. “From now on we’re watching what we eat.”

“You’ll need to spring for something with a wide angle lens,” Son One mumbled, scraping up a shred of zombie cheese off the counter with a fingernail.

“I’ll start by cleaning out the refrigerator. We’re going to throw away everything that’s bad for us.” I held up a pack of withered bologna. To me, lunch meat is the gastronomic equivalent of an Elvis painting on velvet. Everyone thinks it will gain in value the longer they save it and their children end up using it as a gag gift at a holiday party and complaining about their inheritance.

Next came a cheese product that had so many additives it no longer qualified for any of the food groups. When I finished cleaning out the refrigerator, all that was left was a mushy, brown stalk of celery left over from Thanksgiving and a frozen diet dinner left over from the healthy eating binge I launched after the baby was born.

Just then the baby trotted through the kitchen jingling his car keys, and clutching a breakfast pastry made of simulated cookie dough and synthetic chocolate frosting. Eighteen years after his first bowl of sugar frosted cocoa bombs, artificial flavoring is still his favorite food group.

“I’m late for class. What’s for supper tonight?”

I smiled sweetly and chopped the remaining squash into miniscule green bits.

“Not zucchini.”

“Good. Last time I slipped mine to the dog. He had indigestion for a week.”

So I’ll cover it with fat free cheese. They’ll never recognize it.

Squashed

My plan for the New Year was to introduce a wholesome influence into the family’s diet, but it’s impossible to provide healthy meals when one child thinks eating tofu is a Fear Factor challenge and another child only eats food that is covered in pizza sauce or stays crunchy even in milk. They rejected whole wheat bread like it was liver loaf, and the time I bought skim milk at the grocery store, I got voted off the kitchen island. Cooking healthy meals for the family shouldn’t be like an episode from Survivor: Spinach Casserole.

My kids are convinced that broiled chicken is a bird that stayed in the farmyard without SPF 30 and died from exposure. Their idea of fine dining is to supersize their fries. I can’t imagine where they got this attitude. Sure, I believe the road to down below is paved with exercise videos and sugar substitute, but that’s just geographical fact. I haven’t eaten a dessert in six months that wasn’t presorted into 100 calories packages.

“What’s for supper?” Son One strolled into the kitchen licking the icing off a cinnamon bun and tearing open the paper on a candy bar so sticky it looked like it was made of library paste. This kid’s idea of healthy eating is frosting a salad with honey-mustard dressing.

“I thought we’d combine two of your favorite food groups for something new.”

“We’re having Italian and Mexican? Cool!”

“Those aren’t food groups. They’re nationalities. We’re going to have a healthy meal.”

“Did somebody give you a bushel of cast off zucchini again?” Zucchini is the stray cat of the vegetable world. It always shows up on my doorstep at dinnertime.

“You’re so suspicious,” I said, nonchalantly raking chopped zucchini into the dog’s bowl. “I thought I’d make that baked chicken they had at church.”

“You mean Death Chicken? Count me out.” He peered into the freezer and extracted a pizza that had been in limbo so long the pepperoni was petrified and the cheese came in crystals instead of shreds.

“It’s not really death chicken. We just call it that because it’s so easy to make that a lot of times we’ll take it to someone who’s had a death in the family.”

“Yeah. Ever wonder what they died from?”

“Probably from eating zombie food that was in the freezer so long all the vitamins turned to dust.” I managed to sneak a few small zucchini out of the bag under cover of the answering snort.

He peeled off the wrapper and shoveled a layer of ice from the crust. My kids think perma frost is a basic building block of the food pyramid. “What do I set the oven on for undead?”

“Very funny. It wouldn’t hurt you to try something that’s good for you.” Just then the dog wandered through the kitchen to check his dish for food molecules left over from breakfast. He picked up a zucchini slice, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully and spit it out on the floor.

“See, even Bo hates vegetables.” Son One plopped the pizza down on the oven rack. It sounded like he’d launched a hubcap at the dumpster.

I put my hands on my hips. It was time for decisive action. “From now on we’re watching what we eat.”

“You’ll need to spring for something with a wide angle lens,” Son One mumbled, scraping up a shred of zombie cheese off the counter with a fingernail.

“I’ll start by cleaning out the refrigerator. We’re going to throw away everything that’s bad for us.” I held up a pack of withered bologna. To me, lunch meat is the gastronomic equivalent of an Elvis painting on velvet. Everyone thinks it will gain in value the longer they save it and their children end up using it as a gag gift at a holiday party and complaining about their inheritance.

Next came a cheese product that had so many additives it no longer qualified for any of the food groups. When I finished cleaning out the refrigerator, all that was left was a mushy, brown stalk of celery left over from Thanksgiving and a frozen diet dinner left over from the healthy eating binge I launched after the baby was born.

Just then the baby trotted through the kitchen jingling his car keys, and clutching a breakfast pastry made of simulated cookie dough and synthetic chocolate frosting. Eighteen years after his first bowl of sugar frosted cocoa bombs, artificial flavoring is still his favorite food group.

“I’m late for class. What’s for supper tonight?”

I smiled sweetly and chopped the remaining squash into miniscule green bits.

“Not zucchini.”

“Good. Last time I slipped mine to the dog. He had indigestion for a week.”

So I’ll cover it with fat free cheese. They’ll never recognize it.

Boiling Point

It’s not that my son is a picky eater; it’s just that he’d starve to death before the noon rush at any grocery store in America.

He once perused the morning buffet at a luxury hotel restaurant (We have teenage boys. To us luxury means any hotel that doesn’t make us pay a security deposit when we check in.) for three quarters of an hour before demanding to be taken to McDonald’s. Nothing says Breakfast of Champions like a McBiscuit with the outside crust peeled away.

His specifications are exact. He does not eat ugly food.

Ugly food is defined as any food that is unattractive in appearance or that comes in contact with any other food or food-like item during its processing or preparation. Therefore, my kitchen is under constant supervision. It’s like living with a member of the Board of Health who doesn’t clean his room or brush his teeth until threatened with government action.

“Mom,” Son #2 peered in the pot of steaming, frothing liquid and wrinkled his nose. “Are you boiling chickens again?”

“Sure am.”

“Didn’t you just boil a chicken at aunt KJ’s house this weekend?”

“Yes, I was helping her out in the kitchen.”

Son 2, in disgust, “Do you have some sort of addiction to chicken boiling?”

“I’m going to make chicken salad.”

“Are you sure this isn’t some kind of cult ritual or something?”

“I’m sure. Back away from the chicken. It needs to boil another hour.”

“Do we need to have an intervention?”

“No. This is not a bizarre ceremonial rite. You have to stew it before you can make other things with it.”

“Like what? Some sort of nasty chicken potion to smear on your victims? Does it eat their flesh? You know, like zombie chickens.”

“Son, if you don’t like chicken salad, you don’t have to eat it.”

“You’re trying to trick me. You’re going to feed me some kind of boiled chicken serum to make me do your will.”

“That’s ridiculous. I create the potion for making you do my will out of the parts I take out of the chicken.”

“Like what?”

“Like the heart.”

“At least I'd have a heart. Are you lying?”

“Yes, I am. I’m not going to waste a perfectly good bird just to make you obey me. Besides, it doesn’t work.”

He pondered this tidbit. “That’s because I’m not eating it. I shouldn’t even be breathing in the fumes. They’re probably poisonous. Or hallucinogenic.”

I didn’t know words with that many syllables until I was in college. “There are pizzas in the freezer. I don’t care if you eat chicken salad or not.”

Where’s the feet? Are you wearing a chicken claw around your neck?”

“For goodness sakes. That’s the Mother’s Day necklace you and your brother gave me. The pictures are a little fuzzy, that’s all.”

“Sure, Mom, if that’s your real name. I’ll be wanting to see some identification at dinner.”

“Get out of the kitchen.”

“Oh, now you’re worried, aren’t you? You’ll probably try and disguise the chicken in my food.”

All the boy eats is frozen pizza and Captain Crunch. It’s hard to disguise chicken parts as rogue Crunch Berries.

“That’s right. Beware of anything you eat or drink. It may be contaminated with chicken broth.”

“That’s it. I’m making a pizza.”

It’s amazing how people who won’t eat freshly thawed meat by-products will roast a frozen, artificially colored and flavored disc to a golden brown and slam it down like filet mignon just because it says pizza on the box.

Come to think of it, I'm going to make some chicken soup. They say it cures what ails you. And in this case what ails me is a free-range teenager who’s chicken to try new food.