Tag Archives: Swearing

My Son’s First F-Bomb

It was going to happen sooner or later. I think I’ve taken to the parenting thing a lot better than I originally expected I would. I change diapers like an absolute champion. I cook more, and better. Most importantly, I’ve never absent mindedly left my kid anywhere which I think was a concern among immediate family for various reasons. The one thing that was never going to go well was the swearing thing. I swear. A lot. The more comfortable I am, the more I do it. If I’m around you and it seems like I’m swearing a lot, take it as a compliment. It means I’m being myself. As it pertains to pro-creation, it makes sense that I’m ultimately responsible for a lot of things surrounding my kid’s development, and speech is definitely included. The thing is, I’m pretty comfortable around my kid, so you see the problem. The odds are stacked heavily in favour of him eventually being exposed to a healthy dose of colourful language. What kid isn’t, right? Yeah, most kids aren’t…. not like this….. and don’t leave comments saying that you swear a lot too. Thanks, but you don’t. Not like me. I’m not proud of this, but I’m not really as ashamed as I should be either. Lets just say that if my son ends up being half the potty mouth that I am, I just hope I’m not the reason. But I will be.

I’ve slipped up around him. Quite a bit. I slip up around everyone. That’s just me. I almost can’t even keep swearing out of my blog. Think about that. Even if I swear impulsively in my blog, I could always delete and re-word. I don’t even do that. I’m only slightly embarrassed that my mom and her friends read this, but not enough. So with that in mind my son is being set up to fail (or succeed as an awesome swearer). He’s 3 years old and change. I’m honestly surprised that it took this long for as many times as I’ve used foul language in front of him, but F-bombs are not for everyone, and perhaps it took him time to gravitate towards the sheer power of its emotional expression, and how a well placed one can just free your soul for a split second (OK I’m over selling it, I’ll just get to the story).

I’m into Balsamic Vinegar big time. There’s a great place that sells all these different flavours of it as well as Olive Oil. It’s fresh, and they let you sample them out of the (casks??? I don’t know what the container is called) dispensers. I could spend all day in there until my insides cried for mercy. They pour it, and cork it. I spent more money on it that day than a human at my income level should, but I knew my next salad was going to be like a leafy chompy heaven, and was looking quite forward to this. Had to get a traditional Balsamic, as well as a flavoured one. I chose Espresso flavour. It tastes like Balsamic Vinegar, but the aftertaste is like you just ate a Coffee Crisp.

When it’s finally time to prepare this salad, I’m only too excited to pour this liquid euphoria onto my salad. As I try to take the cork out (it’s a cork with a plastic lid on top, so you can open it with your hands as opposed to cork that would be in a wine bottle that you would use a corkscrew for…… just in case you had trouble picturing it……because if you can’t picture it, it fucks up the story……. oh there I go again), and the plastic top breaks off, leaving me with no easy way to open the bottle. Also leaving me with an unusable lid for my bottle. Now that really sucked, and I was frustrated, but I had another bottle, so I figured, let’s try that one? This is still good. Then I tried to open that one, and the exact same thing happened to the other cork, and that left me with no re-course but to have an immature temper tantrum in the kitchen, during which, I exclaimed loudly/angrily “YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” That, my friends, is par for the course, but what happened after isn’t. My son who was playing with toy trains in his bedroom with my wife, stood up and looked her in the eye, balled up an angry little fist, and screamed as clear as day “YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!”

So it starts.


Don’t ‘Shut The Front Door’

I’m going to swear a bit more than normal here. Maybe my mom and her friends shouldn’t read this one. I’ve had a couple of sappy blogs in a row now, and if you’ve followed my patterns, you know it is to be followed with something completely ignorant. I wouldn’t be me otherwise.

The topic of course is swearing. There are people who glorify swearing. I don’t think that’s me, although it’s not too far off the mark. There are people who don’t condone swearing. That’s me a very small percentage of the time. You can’t swear elegantly if you can’t pick your spots. I will say this though. I don’t condone substitute swearing. What’s that you ask? It’s when somebody says Fuzz, Frig, Fudge, when they really mean FUCK! (The exclamation mark was meant for the word, not for the whole sentence in case you’re one of those readers who reads aloud to themselves. Meant to be read in normal voice until the word Fuck, and then you take it up 2 notches). The latest and greatest of substitutions that absolutely drive me crazy is ‘Shut the Front Door!’ This (I’m assuming) is a fun, and supposedly appropriate way of saying ‘Shut the Fuck Up! (Except really only useful with the incredulous voice of disbelief, like you told me you won the lottery and I said a high-pitched, almost question like ‘Shut the Fuck Up!!!! Not useful in the Shut the Fuck Up scenario where I actually want you to Shut the Fuck Up). This is a great way to be funny on TV as far as I can tell, but if you’re not on TV, I have no patience for your ‘Shut the Front Door!’

Why do I like swearing? Isn’t it for people who can’t express themselves with a proper vocabulary? In some cases yes. I would say it adds emphasis that cannot be otherwise added. Well placed and well spaced enough, it can be the perfect addition to a passionate discussion. It’s a feel good thing too right? When you’re frustrated, who doesn’t like a good hard fuck?? (Get your head out of the gutter, I didn’t mean it like that…..but I didn’t delete it either). I just love pulling out my potty mouth to describe unsavoury situations. If done right, it makes things funnier. If done wrong, well at least I got to let out some frustration while my audience judges my choices.

Who could possibly argue that a good ‘Fuck You’ is the perfect thing to say to the victim of your road rage. ‘You’re a bad driver’ just doesn’t cut it. ‘You fucking suck!!!’ hits the nail right on the head. We’re just mammals. Fuck is just a word. Why deny yourselves? It feels fucking spectacular sometimes to just let loose.

I know there’s a time and a place, and I’m not claiming to be the foremost expert on that. My son just turned 2. As much as I badly want him to learn the English language properly, it’s only a matter of time before he picks up something terrible from the old man. I try not to swear around him, but it’s just natural self-expression, and it gets the best of me at times. I feel comfortable around him. I let my guard down sometimes.

What I really wanted to say here is not to use substitutions. It’s far more offensive to me than actual swearing. It just means that in your heart, you wanted to let something out, and you didn’t trust me as your listener. It’s a dishonest form of communication. If your soul had a ‘shut the fuck up’ in it, and all that came out was a ‘shut the front door’, then you didn’t let me in. I don’t respect it. I want the truth from you. I want you to let the crazy out, and not be self-conscious about what people think about it. Those aggressive little stress relievers will lengthen your life too. I’m sure of it.

I know a lot of people find swearing gratuitous. If you think you can offload your aggression without doing it, then you’re a better communicator than me. I would suggest that most people can’t, and the silly little substitutions are just a way of telling me that you wanted to do it, but were too worried about what people would think of you. I hope one day you can break free from your shackles and join the rest of us in saying ‘FUCK THIS SHIT, I WANNA BE FUCKING FREE!!!’ Save your uptightness for something more important.