You Heard Me!

Not too long ago, I talked about how I don't believe in swear words. In there, or at least it should have been in there, was a tacit acknowledgment that I'm well aware that my feelings on this are very much in the minority. I try to temper my language accordingly.

But of course, there was always the etiquette/protocol/what-have-you about what one could say in front of your parents.

I remember saying "cock-knocker" at a New Years Eve party when I was about 11 or so. I didn't even know what I was saying. I was parroting a movie (Stand By Me). I got it good for that one. I probably got it worse for yelling "CHILD ABUSE!" when my father started giving me a butt smacking, but cut the kid me some slack...I had no clue what I said was "wrong" at the time. Both cock-knocker and yelling abuse.

My father was the more lenient of the two parental units, by far. My mother wouldn't tolerate the use of "sucks," in the context of something being bad, or unfavorable. She was always a bit old-fashioned, though. A few months before she died, we were at a family gathering. She made some remark that was startlingly quaint, and I asked her if she was actually able to hear us all the way back there in the '50s.

Once, while driving her back from somewhere or another, as we were close to home (I know exactly where for my readers who are geographically inclined to know: the stop light off the Rt 10 S Furnace Branch Road exit ramp), I dropped a fuck in to a sentence. I immediately got the earful. Unfortunately for her, she summed it up with "what if I were to just say it, huh? Fuck! What do you think of that?" Ruined her poor argument, as I retorted, "I think it's pretty funny, and kinda cool." Ah, Mom. The woman who told me only weeks before she died that she didn't think I'd like a guy like George Carlin because he was so "blue." As in his language, not his mental state of mind.

Now, Dad...well, he could curse with the best of them. Kind of like the father from "A Christmas Story." Except he was pretty careful not to drop the f-bomb around me. But hells, damns, sonuvabitches...dropped like crazy. But I remember distinctly when I learned how lenient he would be with me. I was probably right over the age of 18. I think had I been under 17 he'd been more strict, out of the notion that 18 magically makes you an adult. But we were in our backyard, and moving these cinder blocks. I dropped one on my foot. My reaction was as natural to me as scratching an itch, or blinking. "OW FUCK!" sums it right up.

Pause. Dad looks at me. Sizes me up. "What did you just say?"

No hesitation, I look at him and say "You heard me! I said fuck, I just dropped a cinder block on my foot!"

He gives me a another sizing up, followed up with a patented father stare/appraisal that I think is imprinted in the Raeke DNA, then when I don't back down, says, "That's what I thought you said. Just don't say that in front of your mother."

Fuckin' duh, Dad.