I always knew this day would come. Alex and I swear like sailors. When I first met him, he was so prolific with the f-bombs, I wondered if he didn’t, in fact, know any other adjectives or verbs. Hailing from New York City, I had been known to get creative with my cussing as well. So when we had a child, we said, okay, we’ll have to reel it in someday.
Little baby Lucas, we soon realized, had no idea what we were saying most of the time. So we continued to let the swears flow, be they in much softer, gentler tones. Soon he grew into a boisterous toddler, but he mostly refrained from talking about anything other than lights and fans. (The kid’s obsessed with things that turn on and turn off and spin. I don’t know. Just roll with it.) Every once in a while he would parrot back to us a “shit“ or “ass,” but he’d say it once, we’d shake with suppressed laughter, and then we’d all move on.
Well, the day has finally come, my dears, that we’ve got to officially hang up all our fuckshitbitchasshattery. While playing Mario Kart (and losing badly), I accidentally hit a button on my controller that made it go all wonky. Alex offered to help me fix it, but I was already way behind on the race so I said, “Fuck it.” Welp. Lucas seems to have taken with this phrase. “Fuck it” is now all that comes out of his mouth.
Lucas, with a shit-eating grin: Hey Mama! Fuck it.
Me, flustered: Hey, that’s not very nice, Lucas. You shouldn’t say that.
Lucas: Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.
Me and Alex exchange wide-eyed looks: Heeeeeeey now, that’s enough. What’s that you’re saying? Bucket? Oh yes! Bucket!
Lucas pauses, slightly quizzical. We think: Yessssss. Victory. He continues: Bucket, fuck it. Bucket, fuck it. Bucket, fuck it.
Christ on a cracker, we are in trouble. (What? I can still swear on my blog.) I’m not exactly sure how to remedy this swearing problem. He has continued harassing us with his bucket, fuck it song-and-dance for two evenings now. We are trying to ignore it, but that doesn’t seem to help. In the meantime, over the last two days I have used the words sugar, fudge, dang it, S-H-I-T head, eff you, and wanker as swear replacements in front of the boy, in hopes to curb any additional potty mouth.
I know swears will come out of our mouths. We’ve become so accustomed to cussing that it’s practically etched into our DNA. But I’ve got to give it the old college try. I can just imagine the future calls from the principal’s office.
“Hi, Mrs. Zamora. Yes, your son was caught calling his classmate a ‘cunt goblin.’ Can you explain?” the stern principal grills me.
“Hahahaha! Cunt goblin!”
“…..”
“No, but that’s not funny. I’ll talk to him.”
Maybe in the future swearing will be acceptable in polite company. Like, the more creative you are with your swears, the better chance you have of landing your dream job. But that’s just me being hopeful. I suppose for now, the swears will have to be tucked away, along with the rest of my dreams.
The Olive Gal
green of skin, black of heart
