Dear Cyber Folks,     I thought I would be out trail riding in the great Florida wilds this week—me and my horse named Selena (like the Mexican pop star), but I never made it.  Instead I stayed home combating EbolaRhinoFluPlague.  I know that’s not what the doctor called it.  That’s what I’m calling it.  I have EbolaRhinoFluPlague and before my teeth explode out of my head I want to name names.  Conner Stahle (my one-year old grand-son) is my contact person.  He infected me.  Conner and that disgusting blanket that he drags around like an escaped character out of a Peanut’s cartoon.     Oh, my horse went on the trail ride.  So, basically, I paid $75.00 so that my horse could go to horse camp—without me, while I stayed at home listening to my molars crack from the sinus pressure.  “Curse you, Red Baron, curse you.”      The idea was that I would go into the woods and return with a plethora of new and funny stories about people, horses, campfires, and campfires made from actual cattle dung (it burns right nice if it’s dry enough—see isn’t that a wonderful, warm hearted quote from an actual warm hearted Florida cracker) to share with my good cyber friends—not all of which are Florida crackers.   Instead I have a funny story about staying at home, having EbolaRhinoFluPlague, sitting on the septic tank, and a stinger goat.     There we were Saturday last week a’setting up on the septic tank trying to soak in a bit of healthy Vitamin ‘D’ from what we could of that weak radioactive winter sunshine. It was me and that son-in-law of mine, Phillip, who was trying his best to wrangle those two germ-mongers of his, Conner and Zoe.  Conner thought he had commenced to hiding behind a bush but we could see his feet, and Zoe was dancing around the Japanese Plum tree singing, fruit-fruit-fruit, I want two fruits.   I was feeling as weak as two kittens in a sinking sack but the sun sure did feel good on my throbbing sinus cavities.  All in all it was a good moment . . .     . . . Right up to the moment Conner started stumbling in his one-year old Keds in the direction of a strange, horned, white goat that had mysteriously appeared from beyond next door.     “Phillip, grab that boy before that Billy Goat knocks down your kid.”  The goat flipped his scraggly beard in the direction of my voice.  Phillip scooped up Conner and set him next to me in my pool of medicinal sunshine there on the septic tank.  The goat, a smallish—no higher than my knee—white variety with come hither devil eyes, started a slow trot in our direction.     Phillip, never a lover of goats, asked nervously, “What does it want with us?”     “Well, he’s probably just seeing what’s what,” I said without looking, having closed my eyes again in exhaustion what with me having the EbolaRhinoFluPlague and all.      The next thing I knew I could smell goat—boy goat—close!   When I opened my eyes it was to the sight of this stinker of a goat trying to French kiss the sleeve of my shirt and making obscene goat noises of love.  I bolted out of my lawn chair.     “Or he could be looking for a date.”  I yelled.  The goat made a lunge at my leg.  I dodged.  “Grab the kids before its too late—this stinky goat is in full-on whoopee mode.”      Phillip scooped up Conner but Zoe, misunderstanding what I had said, began running around waving the goat off and yelling, “Go away Stinger Goat.  Go away.”  Confused at the wealth of targets this presented for his springtime lust the goat made a prancing half turn, and then lunged at Phillip’s leg.      “What’s it doing?” Phillip screeched.  Conner shrieked.  Zoe started yelling, “Leave my daddies’ leg alone, bad Stinger Goat.”     “It’s having its way with your leg,” I yelled, as I ripped the garden hose from the side of the house.  I thought maybe the fire hose treatment would be enough to cover my family’s retreat to the safety of the screened porch.      “Run,” I ordered.  Expecting a torrent of water I turned the spigot on full blast, but false advertising had given me a false sense of security in my kink-less hose.  A weak trickle of water dripped from the end and I cringed to see more crimps and kinks than hose.     Phillip shrieked.  Zoe yelled from between my legs, “Bad Stinger Goat!!!!!!!”  I slung the hose like a weapon hoping to unkink the hose and defend whatever honor Phillip still had left in his right leg.  The goat continued to lust.     Finally the hose came free and I hosed down that nasty, stinker, horn-dog of a goat.  He loved it.  But it gave Phillip enough of a head start that he, Conner, and Zoe made it to the screened porch.  I brought up the rear, not two steps ahead of the now wet, nasty, stinker, horn-dog of a goat.     What I saw in my son-in-law’s eyes still brings a shudder to my soul, but what he said next I’ll never forget, “I showed fear.  I showed fear.”  He hung his head.  Conner tried to pet the goat through the porch screen.  I tipped over a lawn table and shoved it against the screen door.     “You smell like bad Stinger Goat,” I said to Phillip.  “I hope you brought a change of clothes.”      And to think that I might have been out trail riding and missed it all.  Here’s to no kinks in our hoses this week. Linda (Sound the Retreat) Zern

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Linda L. Zern (Me)

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