1 post tagged “cussing”
Cursing was an interesting topic in my house. My parents both cussed, which is an important distinction in the 70’s. My parents said ass, asshole, shit, damn, hell, son-of-a-bitch and goddamn. They never said ‘bitch’ as a stand alone and never, ever did I hear the “F” word.
Usually the cursing was artfully woven into any sentence involving my first and middle name like, “Shannon Renee! Get your goddamn ass down here right now. What in the hell is taking you so damn long?” I think I was mentally diagramming sentences at an early age just to understand what my parents were saying and if there was a pending action on my part.
For example, in the above rant, I learned:
“Understood ‘You” ” is the noun and “get” is the verb, “ass” is the direct object. Now I get to draw the nifty little lines with the remaining rant.
When we were really young I remember going to Grandma’s house every Wednesday during the summer where we got a full blown cussing lesson. While the rest of the neighborhood kids were off to the pool for a day of splashing around, we got to hang out at Grandma’s house.
Grandma’s house was special because you could walk into her front door on the brightest of days and enter a haze filled cave like room. I recall seeing the sun fighting it’s way into the grimy smoke covered windows of the dining room, illuminating the swirls of the camel unfiltered smokes that burned freely and unattended in random ashtrays about the room. The ambiance was further accented with whiskey that my Grandpa would keep on a stand in the dining room. He would pass through the dining room throughout the day and take a shot of Seagram’s Seven and a sip of water and head back into the bedroom to pass out. I thought his shot glasses were so cute. I secretly wanted to steal them and add them to my tiny tea cup set. I figured they would be great for Kool Aid but I suppose in hindsight, having shot glasses in a tiny tea cup set for a six year old was too much of a cry for help.
The actual cussing lesson was faithfully taught by Mom, Aunt Katie and Grandma and lovingly delivered around the dining room table, which doubled as their nickel stakes all day card game. Each round was the same. Someone would shuffle the cards, take a drag or two off of their cigarette, then call the game and deal the cards. Then everyone would order their cards and grumble about their shitty hand. Every once in a while they would try and mentor us by letting us slide their nickels into the middle of the pile. The only thing that made the Wednesday card game somewhat bearable was the Tupperware cup of room temperature Pepsi we were given as a treat.
Watching people play cards sucks, especially when you aren’t allowed to talk. Each of us kids positioned ourselves between a grown-up and an ashtray and watched cards and cuss words glide across the filmy table. On more than one occasion we got in trouble for allegedly giving away hands. I was a kid; how the hell am I supposed to know what a good hand looks like? Mostly we sat and wished someone to run out of nickels.
One day Aunt Katie was having particularly bad cards dealt to her. My little sister Kelly occupied the chair position slightly back, but between, Aunt Katie and Mom. As Aunt Katie was considering which crappy card to play, she uttered the first cuss free sentence we had ever heard from her, “Well I’ll be a son-of-a-gun!” Kelly was four and rarely missed anything. She sat up and eagerly responded by correcting her, “Aunt Katie, don’t you mean a son-of-a-bitch?” echoing her normal grumble when she was losing.
The rest of Kelly’s eagerness faded slowly as I watched both Mom and Aunt Katie flail their backhands towards Kelly mouth with a force so strong her chair fell over backwards. I sat frozen for fear I was next. Grandma leaped up and yelled at Aunt Katie and Mom and ran to see if Kelly was alright. Instead of feeling sorry for her actions, Aunt Katie defended her actions. “That’ll teach you to repeat what I say.” Dontcha just love a bad ass adult?
I remember Mom and Grandma chiming in and telling Kelly she shouldn’t cuss. She never said a word after that. We also never sat at the dining room table during Wednesday card games.
