Mother puss bucket

My mother detested my use of colorful language. She was forever chastising me, “You have such a wonderful vocabulary, why do you have to use words like that?”
“It’s not that I have to use the words,” I told her, “But sometimes shit means shit. Ass is ass. Fuck just might be the right word for the job.”
It is interesting to note that most everyone learns how to cuss from their parents.
I was having this very conversation with my daughter’s daycare provider. She had a 3-year-old that she decided she could no longer continue to watch.
“He sings this really bad song that the rest of the kids started singing,” she said. “And he’s a real potty-mouth.”
She found out that mom taught junior the song – and dad’s got the guttermouth.
My mother was fond of “Jesus Christ” (as in, “Jesus Christ, you kids are being too loud.”) Dad, having spent some time in the military, could string together some really colorful language. But his go-to word was definitely “Goddammit” (as in, “Goddammit, you kids are driving me nuts.”)
There is an art to swearing, no doubt about that. Amateurs will frequently drop the F-bomb all over the place (“Fuck, you should have fucking seen this fucking guy drive. What the fuck was he fucking thinking?”).
However, used at the right time, by the right person, fuck is all-powerful. Back when I was 12, my mom was putting up the artificial Christmas tree. My 10-year-old sister and I were there to help (dad was out drinking, something he did for 10 years, before he quit, cold-turkey). Mom was pissed, but determined to make merry memories.
This tree’s plastic limbs were all color-coded to the slots in its mop-handle trunk. You had to separate out all the colors, then build the tree. In the process of finishing the crown, she lost her balance, tumbled into the tree, which crumpled to the floor.
“FUCK!” she screamed.
Sis and I stared at each-other, dumbfounded. Mom, being mom, recovered gracefully.
“Hey, how about we make some hot chocolate?”
It takes a real wordsmith to capture the flavor of the moment with swears.
Back when I was just testing this out for real – senior year in high school – a carload of us came up on a semi that was clogging up the turn lane. We pulled along side and I said, “Move that goddamn piece of shit over.”
The trucker leaned out and said, “What did you say?”
“Move that goddamn piece of shit over.”
He looked as us, smiled and said, “That’s what I thought you said.”
I evolved, moved to college where I let loose with such lines as, “If you weren’t such a backward-ass country fuck, you’d understand what I’m saying,” and “Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick” (yeah, I stole it from the band The Dead Milkmen, so sue me).
As I move into my 40s, I’d have to say my go-to swear is “son of a bitch.” It covers a whole range of sins, and you can change its meaning just on delivery alone (say it slow, low and deliberate – “Son.....of.....a....BITCH” and people pick up on that fact that you’re seriously pissed).
The problem is, I have kids now – someone else’s kids that I am raising in my image – so I have to watch my mouth. A lot.
Still, I find myself using these gems:
“Goddammit, you kids are too loud!”
“Jesus Christ! You didn’t just track mud across the goddamn kitchen floor, did you?”
Thanks, mom and dad.