Monday, May 3, 2010

I've Got The Curse!

I got a message on Facebook a few days ago asking me who I was rooting for in Celtics/Cavs basketball playoffs. Being born and raised in Cleveland, but having lived most of my adult life in Boston, this was apparently supposed to cause me some consternation. So I said "I have lived in Boston longer than I ever lived in Cleveland. But I would have to give a shit about basketball to answer that question." And the message back was, "Do all your responses require profanity?" I actually had to go back and reread. Oh, yeah I guess "shit" is a profanity.

The answer is yes, cute guy from Cleveland who shattered my heart once upon a time.Yes, I do need to use profanity every time I respond to a question, every time I make a comment, every time I voice an opinion. I need to liberally lace my prodigious vocabulary with "fuck" and "shit". And I don't stop there--I have taken back the words "cock" and "pussy" and turned them into instruments of daily destruction, e.g. The Big Guns. Destroy who, you ask? Oh, you know who you are.

I would like to say that I can predict which men will melt when I say "No way, motherfucker!" but I really can't. It doesn't seem to be predicated on level of education, age or field of employment. The fun for me is figuring out who likes it and who winces. And watching for the wince is great fun. No offense to the lovely people who do the virtual wince, but your use of * in place of a "u" in "fuck" or the "s" in "ass" is hilarious. It makes me want to unleash a string of naughtiness that would make my father (from whom I learned all my curses, in Arabic and Hebrew as well as English) blush.

I went through years of trying not to curse, to protect the delicate ears of my children. The truth is, like many things in life, repressing will make it volcanic when it actually erupts. And erupt it did, while driving. Driving in Boston is notoriously stressful, what with there being no law and everything. Being the family chaffeur meant my stress level was through the roof. I finally had to call the fucking asshole who BACKED UP ON THE ENTRANCE RAMP TO THE MASS PIKE a, well, fucking asshole. I screamed it out the window actually. And no one in the car died. Not me, not my children. Everyone survived. Even the stupid douche who backed up on the Mass Pike.

So now I embrace this potty mouth. It is a quick way to separate the wheat from the chaffe, as it were. If someone does more than wince, such as adopts the look my mother gets when I say "fuckhead", I know there will be no love between us. And if there is a little twinkle in the eye, I will unleash The Big Guns. If you smile when I call Trey Anastasio a pussy, we are golden. What else could I possibly call him that would capture what he is? See? Pussy is the only word.

And, by the way, I got a message from Mr. Cleveland Heartshatterer today. And it turns out his virtual mom-face was a fake. As if I didn't know.

3 comments:

  1. I read a study where they found that swearing can increase one's tolerance to pain...

    Those are some clinical trials I would like to have seen. I wonder if certain words were more “therapeutic” that others. I’d guess, the more taboo, the more bang for your buck, so to speak.

    And I wonder how much the test subjects got paid. It’s a miracle they got anyone to answer their ad.

    "Wanted: subjects to be tested on pain endurance. Must have potty mouth and be unafraid to use it. Insurance should be up to date."

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  2. I try to curb my mouth because I can sound like I grew up in Somerville. Not that there's anything wrong with Somerville. I lived there for 10 years.

    I especially try to watch myself around the kids, but you're so right about the car. I've said everything possible while driving with my kids. For the most part they don't hear it. At least I don't think they do, until I hear the same word come out of their mouths. Then I'm embarrassed.

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  3. My daughter, she's 2 by the way, says dumb-fuck, calls the cat a fucking bitch, says she's going to beat her sister's ass...

    Ehhh, life sucks... Tell the fuck wad to get the fuck over it and quit being a twat!

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