Ode to the F-Bomb

I have longed to use you for a while.

No substitutions have your style.

Sharp and concise – to show my wrath,

Either towards myself or some jack ath…

O.K. I admit I couldn’t think of a good rhyme with the word wrath.  But the point is still clear.  I have an affinity for dropping the F-Bomb now that no kids are around.  And my hubby is not happy about my new-found freedom.  As I cuss so much now, I do hear a sarcastic laden “Nice manners Babe” quite often.  I think he’s perplexed as to why I am doing this so frequently.  Me too.  I guess I find it freeing. It is pretty unlike me to swear so much.  But it is becoming a habit. For example:

• If my husband asks me “How was your day?  Did you find time to go to the gym?” my reply is “F*CK NO!”  
• If a bad driver, who is of course texting while zooming 75 mph, cuts me off on the highway –my mouth spews “MOTHER F*CKER!”

• If a rude person lets their dog, which is obviously the size of freakin’ Cujo, poop on our driveway –I mutter, “F*CK THIS SHIT!” (literally).

I wasn’t always a sailor with a potty-mouth.  When the boys were little I was very careful never to say anything worse than “Ej bekot” – a super tame Latvian phrase that basically tells someone to go pick mushrooms.

But it never fails –there comes a day when your little one lets loose a curse word.  

My toddlers started using “Shitty Gritty!” when frustrated.  A phrase they coincidently picked up after their grandfather watched them for a week while my hubby and I were on vacation.  They even exclaimed it with a slight accent that had my dad’s name written all over it. 

When they were in elementary school they watched a lot of Spongebob Squarepants and let loose “Tartar Sauce!” an awesome Bikini Bottom swear word that was pretty endearing.  But the lack of bite in that phrase caused its use to fade quickly as they got older and then we explained that they were permitted to exclaim “crap!” but not “sh*t!”.

A good friend reported to me that my youngest son used “crap” a lot when playing video games with her son and thought it sounded too adult and brash.  So there was the conundrum.  I told my kid he could say that, as opposed to the other real curse words he had learned from an older brother and from me during our times in the car on the freeway when I might have let an adult expression of serious dismay escape my lips. But her son was a great friend to my son so I suggested my guy zip it when he wanted to swear so as not to inflict his bad manners onto his friend’s virgin ears.

Not long after that I got a phone call from my girlfriend who was hosting a sleepover at her house with a gaggle of elementary-aged boys from the same little league baseball team.  When I answered the phone, I thought “good grief”, my son has used his favorite swear word during the night’s festivities… But no, the call wasn’t about my son’s use of the word “crap”.  It was in fact about my friend’s embarrassment that he got exposed to all sorts of colorful language from a movie they watched about baseball… the classic 1976 Bad News Bears. 

This film stars Walter Matthau as Morris Buttermaker, a down-on-his luck, aging, beer guzzling coach who has a team of misfit kids playing in an ultra-competitive little league.  And although the themes of the movie involve very positive lessons of success through teamwork and never giving up…

“This quitting thing, it’s a hard habit to break once you start.” (Morris Buttermaker)

the main take-away the boys soaked up was the use of plenty of cussing – capped off at the end of the film with a boy exclaiming “You can take your apology and your trophy and shove ‘em straight up your ass!” 

Hah!  I didn’t give my girlfriend a hard time.  Poor thing felt she needed to call each parent and apologize.  But I did learn that no matter how good your intentions, there may be something that happens that screws things up.  In other words, “Sh*t happens” 🙂

Don’t you just love the scene in “A Christmas Story” when Ralphie drops the F-bomb as bolts go flying in slow-motion from the hubcap when helping his dad change a tire in the snow? His mom just dies when the dad tells her what Ralphie said. She makes him put a massive bar of soap in his mouth…yuck.

I guess I need to do the soap punishment on myself.  A swear jar with quarters isn’t going to cut it, because I definitely have an affinity for premium swear words and a some loose change isn’t going to help me kick this habit.  

For now I guess I will try to tame it down.  I have been quite successful with using the phrase ” Oh, F*ckeroo!” when exasperation hits.  But nevertheless, I need to watch my words. 

Lest I become like Buttermaker:

An old fart with the lack of a filter that makes folks think I am a bawdy, low-down grump….  Could that really be me???

Well “F*ck!