I think it part of human nature that we focus (read: obsess) on a particular trait from time to time and wonder how we got like that. My obsession du jour is cursing. I know I have a potty mouth. I'll slip in a "Fuck!" (always with the exclamation points, this one. If you just let it slip out of your mouth with out the oomph! it hangs there, flaccid, like my ex-husband's penis, it's better left unsaid, I think.) or a "Shit" or "DAMN!" just because I can any old time, any old time, and because, like freshly pedicured toenails that are painted blue, it MAKES! ME! FEEL! GOOD! I like to "motherfuck" my way through the day, giggling with glee every time "cunt" or "dammit" leave my laquered...err...liquored lips. I do have to say this: IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CONSONANTS, PEOPLE. So don't come pussyfootin' around here, if you catch my drift, because the "and sometimes y?" doesn't fly around here. Just so we're clear.
Yesterday, or the other day, or the day before because when you're not working full time or even when you are they all just kind of run together when it is gray and drizzly, I started to pay attention to my explicit exclamations. Frequency. Ferocity. Repetititititivity. (Beavis and Butthead moment: Hee hee. "She just said TIT.") And what I noticed my fine foul-mouthed friends is that I curse. A motherfucking lot. Dh and I have discussed that we have frighteningly addictive personalities. Not that we addict others to us with our personalities because we are so jolly and so gay! or even so FRESH! and so CLEAN! NO! But that we do something to the point where neighbors and friends observe us and then want to do an intervention. Dh is addicted to healthy things, mostly: working out, eating right, working on his car, and cooking. I on the other hand, am addicted to things that make my "ass go boom": wine, cheese, insert calories here. And then there's the cursing. Another fucking drawer in my cluttered closet o' crack entirely.
But HOW did I GET THAT WAY? I keep asking, not unlike the white chocolate Kit Kat. They know they should be milk chocolate. And milk chocolate is NOT! NOT! NOT! the color of milk, oh no. It is the color of chocolate milk. So where's my chocolate milk?
I can trace it back to 6th grade. I was nine years old. AND UP UNTIL THAT POINT nary a "shit" nor a "damn" had passed my lips. I don't think I even felt comfortable saying "shoot" or "bitch" (rubbing belly contentedly, my my how times they have a-changed, n'est-ce pas?) . And then we moved to Washington DC. And then I met Aubrey. Aubrey was a motherfucker. There's just no way around it. In retrospect, I find it hard to remember why I hated him so much. I just remember feeling it. The acidy hot feeling of dislike that turns over and over in my stomach, like those preserved prunes I ate for a snack two days ago. He was a bigger kid. Egg shaped head. More bully than brawn. More guffaw than giddy-up. He's the kind of kid that would pick his nose and then chase you with it, cornering you behind the jungle gym where the playground teachers couldn't see you, before triumphantly swiping his glistening fingers across your face. Then he would yell "Alex chased me with her boogers and wiped them all over my face! She's gross!" Which as any nine year old 6th grader whose mother still dressed her in pink and purple kilts with a matching purple sweater, socks, and pearls who couldn't dance or curse knew, was a death wish. In those days, I thought I stuck out because I - lessee, how do I say this poitely? - was the only mixed blood with lighter skinned tendencies in that school. It's not. Those kids were raised colorblind. That's not why I stuck out like a sore thumb. It's because I was a big fucking dork. All magnified by the fact that I didn't "Shit man, that's so cool" with the best and the rest of them. Even the kid who could play "Auld Lang Syne" on the xylophone the entire way through after only hearing the damn song once therefore making the rest of us look like, well, a bunch of 6th graders would let a "fucking A" drop. And it was not flaccid. It was cool. It was status. It was better than smoking on the corner with the high schoolers who would give you cigarettes to make you cough and then laugh at you. And I, I was outside the bubble. Looking in, but unable to find that little window in. Until Aubrey fucked with me one too many times.
We were outside, for recess. Playing on the baseball field. It was sunny and cold. Clear. Almost winter but still touches of fall hanging on like those stubborn leaves that refuse to make their way to the ground. Aubrey was chasing me around. I was winded, no longer running, but just kind of tottering out of his reach. I can still feel that wind piercing my lungs with each breath. I knew from experience, that I was done. And he, ever the prey, knew it too. He would taunt me, slowing just enough to where I thought he would stop and maybe hang back with the other kids who were, I don't know, being normal kids and not tormenting the new kid. I was tiring quickly, and I knew that something needed to be done. Some statement needed to be made. Some flag needed to be burned. Some heads needed to be turned. Some power needed to be gained. Some respect. Whatever. I just wanted the kid to leave me the fuck alone. So what did I do? I cursed him out. I TOLD HIM, that's what. And because I was in 6th grade in 1986, I did it in PIG LATIN (God, do I even want to type it, much less admit it in public?) .
I said, and by said, I mean whirled in the middle of the baseball field, planted my hands on my hips, made sure all eyes were on me, and prayed that my months and months of practicing in front of the mirror so's not to get my tongue stuck or mess up the order of the cursing which would immediately render me untouchable,
I DECLARED: "Crystal, tell that othermay-uckerfay ickday uckingsay wotay-imin'tay itchbay to get the fuck out of my face!"
Yup. That was my crowning moment of glory. I like to think that the whole playground was silenced, amazed by my mastery of the words, immediately struck by the divine knowledge that I was COOL, I WAS COOLER THAN COOL, but really, I think Crystal just laughed to hear those words come out of my mouth, and so did the rest of my peers, and then Aubrey chased me down anyway, so I was essentially still 9 years old in a kilt and pearls whose Momma dressed her and made her hair flip just so. Who cursed. In Pig Latin. Y'all do the math.
But for those five fucking seconds it took me to utter those carefully rehearsed words? I was cooler than motherfucking Michael Jackson.
You were NINE when you were in the 6th grade?! My daughter just turned 9 and she's in 4th! Did you skip a couple grades?
when i was in the fourth grade, I told a boy to "give me the FUCKING pencil!!!!" and he went and told my teacher. Well, good little church girl and prefect child that I was, i knew i shouldnt have cursed. SO, in order to make up for the fact that I said the f-word, I lied about... it made sense at the time. So i told my teacher that i only told him to "give me the sucking pencil!" because at that time I didn't know the beauty of flippin or frickin or freekin. SO, there ya go. glad i wasnt the only dorko.
I was 10 in the sixth grade. Well I turned 10 in November that year.
I would have been slapped silly if I had said the F word. I don't even think I knew it exhisted then... talk about sheltered.
That was the funniest thing I've read today.
I too curse like a sailor. It's rather indelicate, and I'm trying to work on it because when you're in polite society - or around young children - it really doesn't quite do to let profanities spill out.
Or, I curse in French. Then I have a much better chance that people won't understand me.
I too love to cuss, but society isn't as cool as you. I try to only cuss with and around people that appreciate it. Partly because I feel more comfortable and partly because I don't like to offend the uncool. The thing I don't get is that they are just words - I always thought that if my super religious gramdmother dropped a roast on the floor and said darn, that it was just as powerful as my words when I stub my toe in the middle of the night on the coffee table. Oh well Fuck it!
i was a good kid. a nerd, even (imagine that!). i don't think i said "fuck" until i was in like, 11th grade.
coincidentally, that was the year of the first time i got fucked.
in case you're wondering, i shit way way WAYYYY before i ever said the word "shit".
Hey Alex, are you engulfed in spite? or you are just naturally inclined to curse all the time? ... Beavis and Butthead were indeed COOL cartoons!