Working Against Me

We all know that my language could use a good scrubbing. There are a few 3, 4, and 5 letter words that should be expunged from my vocabulary.

When I say this, I feel like I am talking about starting to smoke or something, but I started swearing about the age of 17. All the cool kids were doing it... at least all of the cool debate nerds that I hung out with. (Is there such a thing?) It made me feel grown up.

As I've gotten older, though, I find that the swearing is not about being cool so much as it is about being accurate. I know, it shows a lack of intelligence on my part, but I've never come across any words that make my point like swear words.

But I'm going to have to.

I tell you, it's like drinking. For a long time, I tried to hide it from my children, but I think that I must be slipping. Trust Doug to point that out to me. The other night as he was praying, he said, "and please bless that NO ONE in our family will say any more bad words."

No one means me.

So, I've been trying.

But life is working against me.

Take today, for example. I went for a ride with Jedi Joy. We had a great time. We went 26.5 miles and had 1/2 mile to go. We're riding along, when some _____ _____ on his cell phone goes to cross the road right in front of us. We both pull our brakes and he finally sees us. The moron freaks out and stops in the middle of the road-- still on his phone-- only feet away from us. He is just stopped there for a second right in front of us and we can't figure out whether to go in front of him or behind. He waves us through, then thinks better of his position (being stopped in the middle of a busy road and all) and steps on the gas anyway, nearly mowing us over again.

Who wouldn't call the guy a dumb ass?

Later on in the day, as I am cutting up canteloupe with my awesome new knife, I slice my finger. This knife is so sharp and the cut is so clean that it doesn't hurt at all, but by the way blood started spurting out, I knew I was in trouble.

Out slips the s-word-- right in front of Emalee. She just looked at me sweetly as she was getting me a band-aid and cleaning up the blood on the counter and says, "Don't worry, Mom. I probably would have sworn too."

Ouch.

She did say something that made me laugh. She said that she heard her grandpa (my dad) say that word when they had all of the grandkids at the cabin last week. She said they were all fighting a little and my dad told them they were being little "s----s."

Like father, like daughter, I suppose.