Why I Curse So Much

Last night I was contemplating the reason I love swearing. Swear words just spill from my mouth like little poos out of the ass of an incontinent septuagenarian. I’ve heard all of the shlame-brained opposing arguments: You sound uneducated and uncouth. You only swear because you are too lazy/stupid to choose a better word. Swearing is hurtful. So I decided to address each of those little ditties to see if my challengers are right. (The fact that I know and use the word “uncouth” proves I’m not uneducated, bitches.)

Let’s begin by examining whether swearing is hurtful. Seriously? How is “Fuck you!” any worse than “My, you are looking quite bovine today!”? That last one sounds so elegant, yet it’s a deceptive little mo-fo. If you utter those words, you are using a prettied-up version of calling someone a cow. FU is so overused that it has the bite of a denture-less senior citizen on life support. And if your skin is so goddamned thin that words like asswipe, fucktard, and son-of-a-bitch actually  get to you, then fuck you, you fucking fuck. (Thank you, Lisbeth Salander’s t-shirt in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Again. So sue me. I like it.) 

You know, I don’t love everything Ricky Gervais says, but I do have to say that I agree with his recent comment that’s something like, “If I offend you, I don’t care.” I have many, many friends (a group growing smaller by the minute) who never read a word of anything I write because they are offended by my potty mouth. And that’s okay. I still love those folks, and I hope they still love me. One’s vocabulary should not be a condition of friendship. Plus, there are gazillions of readers who don’t find my swearing objectionable, and I am banking on the fact that one day they will also not find the price of my books objectionable. Meh. We’ll see. But the point is that if you are injured or insulted by my writing, don’t read it.

Moving on. Another argument against a colorful vocab is the old you-sound-uneducated-if-you-swear tack. Yeah. I earned a Masters of Fine Arts with DISTINCTION because I am a dumbass. I consistently score in the expert range on those Reader’s Digest “Word Power” things, so there. Mensa wants me. I’ve got a little thesaurusness going on. And I can be as erudite as many of my favorite wordsmiths. When I want to. And of course, that is the point. I know when to curb my language so as not to cause mass cardiac arrest at church. And I don’t tell my students that they have to be fucking kidding me with some of the shit they use for excuses sometimes (although I’d love to). But I love me some swear words, people. Sometimes only a shit or a fuck will do. And last time I checked, America still allows freedom of speech even if it is in Spanish.

Finally, my favorite argument is remarkably similar to the one above: You are too lazy to select a better word when you swear. But really, “You jerk,” doesn’t carry the venomous heft of, say, “You smeared-asshole smacking, dick-cheese eater.” The first one says, “I am a chaste choirboy.” The latter says, “I was repeatedly butt-fucked by my priest after choir practice, and you should see my therapy bills.” Now. I’m probably never going to be in a situation that requires the use of that hurled insult, but am I ashamed for having thought of and written down those words?! Yes. Yes, I am. In general, though, pretty anything that spools out of this brain of mine is fair game.

Look. Obscenities are the cayenne of our language. Some of us like more sprinkle than others. But does that make it wrong? Spiciness can actually be measured in Scoville units, but there is no way to measure whether more or less spice is right or wrong. And if you are still bitching about my salt-lick lexicon, I have this for you:

Twat you say? I cunt hear you. I must have an ear infucktion. (Thank you to my brother for teaching me that in elementary school. Is it any wonder I have a mouth like the sewers of New York City? No, it is not.)

Old as Hell in the New Year

Oh. Em. Gee. My thighs look exactly like that.

Okay. I know I said I was going to dish on that YouTube-welfare-mom-of-fifteen, Angel Adams, but I’m such a fucking procrastinator that now that story is so last year. And all I was going to say anyway is that Michelle Duggar (i.e., not black and poor) can shit out 19 goddamned babies, and she gets a reality show and a 7,000 square-foot house courtesy of Discovery Networks, while her husband, whose dick is apparently a permanent fixture in Michelle, claims that the family lives “debt free” based on some financial freedom seminar. Or based on the proceeds from the sale of their souls to the Discovery Networks. Mmm hmmm.  

Huh. I wonder what the difference between those two super-similar stories really is. Race? Class? Intelligence? Education? Luck? Looks?

Meh. That last one brings me to a much more important subject: me. I mean, I am pushing fifty here, and I am still puh-ritty damned hot if you don’t count things like looks, weight, skin, hair, nails and teeth-whiteness. And if you concentrate primarily on temperature, especially in the middle of the night when I wake up drenched in menopause. Hell. I bought my husband one of those sleep masks, ostensibly to block out all the ambient light in the room. But it was really so that he doesn’t have to look too long and hard on the forty-two-car-pile-up he married.

I also recently purchased some “beauty” products that I’d read about in Glamour and Vogue. Yeah. Because none of the photos of stick-women with luxurious locks and nuclear smiles and skin as tight as a condom on an 18-year-old virgin are touched up or anything. I believe that all I have to do is slather on expensive creams, and I, too, will notice a 74% improvement in the overall texture, tone and appearance of my face in a mere 12 weeks like 86% of the women in clinical studies.

I drove all the way across town to Macy’s, for Christ’s sake, for the privilege of trading my many, many dollars for youth and happiness. The receipts indicated that the serums I snagged must have fucking gold or endangered species sperm as a main ingredient. Unfortunately, precious metals and/or ejaculate do not a youthful glow make. No. Acne is what they make. On me anyway. Yes, not only did I not notice a 74% improvement, I now have new and angry acne marks. And I’m sallow. Plus, still old. Thanks, lying-ass bitches.

At least I was able to get my money back for the offending products after they failed. Thank God for liberal return policies. Then I was able to buy much more down-to-earth goods and services that have guaranteed mood-brighteners. Candy. Shit from McDonald’s drive through. Popcorn-shaped Styrofoam ® coated with buttery-flavored petroleum and a viewing of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Now, that flick, I must say, was the best damned thing I’ve seen in years. Lisbeth Salander is my personal heroine even if she did let some misogynist impale one of her nips. Ouch. Some dude coming at my boob with a sharp implement would have to have some massive cojones. But then he would have none quickly thereafter. So. Yeah.

But seriously, Rooney Mara’s Oscarlicious performance and the cooler-than-any-Quentin-Tarantino-character just as she was written have burrowed nicely into my cells. She kicks ass literally and figuratively. I can only dream of being so cool. Especially now that I’m about to go to bed, where my nightly appointment with sweat is imminent.