Curse Words and Sweat Hogs

 
Curse Words and Sweat Hogs
It is three in the morning. My mind is a blur of swirling thoughts that never seem to plague me in the daytime. I would guess the mind waits for you to relax and give it a moment to stop concentrating on holding you up and moving you around… or in my case which spoon to use or watching my language in front of my family. Let me get this right out there… I curse like a sailor.
 
I feel like there is a time and place for everything. Obviously, I do not curse in church or at my pastor, or in front of small children. I have only cursed like that in front of my mother (never in front of my daddy) a few times and I think the first real-time was while in the hospital and on morphine. Do you get a pass for that? You should. Things you say while high on a doctor-administered narcotic directly in your vein should be pardoned.

God surely does not write it down and keep it on your “sin roster”; mine surely is long and probably going to require some explaining… I am thinking the list of my cursing would count little toward that. At least I hope.


I have heard both my parents drop the f-bomb a few times; in more increasing numbers as I have gotten older. (perhaps they think it is okay now that I am old enough?) It still freaks me out every time I hear it. Like the few times, I have overheard my grandparents curse. Some things should never happen… parents and f-bombs… unless you are the Osbornes … should not ever happen. Call me prudish but it sort of tarnishes that whole superhuman nature of parents and grandparents.

Another thing a person should never be subjected to is hearing how great your grandparent’s sex life is. Yeah, that happened to me once. The idea of pouring bleach in my ears and perhaps my eyes or giving myself a home lobotomy had never occurred to me before I sat on their couch as my grandmother expounded on the healthy virility of my 80-year-old grandfather… and how she thinks it has helped him keep his hair. There it is folks a healthy sex life helps you keep your damn hair. I have solved male pattern bald…. Well, I suppose my grandmother has solved it. Whatever.  An entirely different day in therapy for that. 
 
I might never have learned to curse if it had not been for my loving mother. While she spent money on “finishing classes” hated the haughty nature it gave me; she did not want a frigid prude of a child. On a family vacation in the middle of a Texas summer when our A/C had gone out in our land yacht of a family Buick Regal, dripping in sweat as my father refilled the gas tank and grabbed some drinks and those crappy cracker packs from the convenience store. My mother, who I had just admonished for saying “shit”, locked the doors to the car and turned to look at me sitting behind her. If I did not say the word shit we were not leaving.

“WE ARE NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU SAY THE WORD SHIT!”

 

My mother and I are similar in temperament. Neither of us wanted to give to the other. So there we sat sweating and glaring at each other like wet hens. My father is trying to get back in the car and is now trying to figure out what the Sam Hill is going on… That triggers a small-ish fit outside the car. As I notice people staring at us sweating in the road boat of a car, I called the sweat hog from that day forward, finally yelled at the top of my lungs…

“SHIT”!

 

Thus my days of cursing were released upon the world on a steamy, suffocating, blistering, Southeast Texas afternoon. No breeze to carry the ugly word from the car only the smell of gasoline and my father getting in the car in a huff wondering exactly what had just transpired between his eight-year-old and his wife. Who now had turned around and had a smug and satisfied look on her face. The baby brother was probably sleeping… or something.

That moment in, my mother and I’s relationship, was one of those defining moments; one that showed how the balance of power would be and there would be many of these stand-offs to come.  Thankfully most of these did not occur in a sweltering car, sitting at a Mobil Gasoline Service Station. 

Yep, we put the fun in Dysfunctional. I think the key to that word is FUNCTIONAL. We are not perfect, but we all love each other. Ugly words and all…. Well except for that day in the hospital on the morphine as I cussed everyone and the pain with every ugly word I could come up with. I think I finally earned the brownie badge for language and perhaps for once my mother questioned the wisdom of losing her cool that day.
 
I do not know. She would never admit it. Southern lady to the core; and I love her for that. 

I cannot wait to have kids.