I met today's guest writer at the EBWW conference in 2014 and thought she was such a hoot! I have featured her on my site before because her midlife sense of humor deeply resonates with me. Please welcome Anne Bardsley, author of "How I Earned My Wrinkles", to my blog today! She's sharing a funny story about the time her young granddaughter decided to turn into a parrot and imitate one of her favorite swear words. I was howling with laughter after reading this post, because I have a 4 year old granddaughter who I'm sure would do the same thing to me. This story reminds me to watch my mouth now whenever I'm babysitting....
I Taught My
Granddaughter To Curse
I am not proud
that I taught my granddaughter to curse. I got busted. She overheard
me say, “Oh Shit!” When the mailman arrived, she couldn’t wait
to tell him the exciting new. “I learned a new fun word from my
Gigi. “Shit!” she announced proudly. He scowled at me. “I did
not teach you that!” I protested. “Yes you did, Gigi. You yelled,
‘Oh Shit!’ when you spilled your coffee.” I looked at the
mailman and mouthed, “Oh Shit!” He grinned at me sympathetically.
He must be a potty mouth grandfather.
That became her
word of the day. “Oh shit! Let the dog out. Oh shit!! Let the dog
in. Oh shit! It’s lunchtime.” Then it became her word of the week
and she used it everywhere. At the grocery store she announced, “Oh
shit! We forgot my cereal.” It’s odd how fast they learn to use
the words with appropriate timing. And where did she learn the
appropriate facial expression?
I want my sweet
grand kids to use clean and approved language. And so I have decided
to clean up my potty mouth. This is a challenge for me. I have a
clean mind and heart, but every so often an F- bomb escapes from my
lips. It seriously wiggles past my teeth and before I can bite it
back, it’s out. I hate when it happens.
My problem is
that I have a latent PMS (Potty Mouth Syndrome). After raising five
kids, some words just slip out all on their own. I cannot be held
responsible because I survived their teen years by a thread. In
hindsight, that’s when I was at my peak of PMS. At two in the
morning, I stared out the window praying they’d come home safe so I
could kill them personally. I definitely developed my advanced,
choice, vocabulary words those nights.
My goal was to
completely remove the F bomb from my language. This was not as easy
as I thought it would be. The darn (notice I said darn) F words kept
forming on my lips. Once the Fffff sound started I had to get
creative quickly. “What the Fook?” was my personal favorite. It’s
such a perfect question showing annoyance, yet fondness. I’m all
about soft cursing.
If the cashier
loaded my grocer bag too full, I’d ask, “What the Fook?” while
smiling. I never want to hear the little ones ask that question, even
if they are smiling. It’s too close to the real F word. I had to
drop that one.
I tried using
Fig Newton as my new word, but every time I asked, “What the Fig
Newton?” the cashier ran and grabbed a bag of cookies for me. After
eight bags of cookies, I needed another word.
I tried Frill.
That sounds clean and it’s quite charming. The only problem is my
pronunciation. It sounds like Fah-Reeeel. My mouth gets distorted and
neck muscles tighten like a turkey straining. It’s a horrible look.
My sister suggested I just use the F word instead of making that
face.
I thought of
Cockeypop …or is it Poppycock? That is a loaded word and a train
wreck waiting to happen. My menopausal mind could do so much damage
with either. I dismissed them both immediately, as I giggled.
As you can see,
I am struggling. My fear is that by the time I get my language
kid-approved, they’ll have new ones to teach me. I suck at this
stuff.
Oops!
BIO:
Anne Bardsley is the author of How I Earned My Wrinkles...Musings On Marriage, Motherhood and Menopause. She has been featured on Erma Bombeck's humorwriters.org, Scary Mommy, The Mid,All things Menopause, The Grand, Better After 50, Very Funny Women and local publications and more. She lives in St Petersburg, Fl with her wrinkle-maker of a husband and her spoiled cockapoo puppy, named Mattie. She barely survived raising five children and now is blessed with three beautiful grand children.
LINKS:
Blog URL: http://www.annebardsley.com
Author Page: How I Earned My Wrinkles
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anne.bardsley.9?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ANNEBARDSLEY1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anne.bardsley.9?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ANNEBARDSLEY1
So funny... I can just picture her walking around. Language really is just a habit, but a powerful one, right? I always told my kids - when I would slip - that cursing really is best kept at bay, and only pulled out when you really need it. I have some crazy (but clean) expressions I've always used, which both of my girls have informed me are not widely used. But hey, I figure someday they will look back and remember me fondly for being a non-traditionalist:)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I have that potty mouth... it's interesting that I can hold it back at work and church... but any other time my lips can be too loose... Thankfully it isn't all the time but it comes out when I least expect it... My grandchildren are coming for a visit this summer, I need to clean up my mouth completely before they get here, I will never hear the end of it from my daughter if they should learn some new words from their glama nana... lol
ReplyDeleteI have incurable PMS. Thank Gawd I never had kids, and cats don't talk. Funny post!
ReplyDeleteOh the struggle of the potty-mouthers. I shoulda been born a f#@$ing sailor. ;-)
ReplyDeleteA sister sailor!!!! That's fooking awesome!!
DeleteI kind of like Fig Newton. Have had no success at all with "Good Golly Gumdrops." Just saying.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter is consistently correcting me in front of her kids. It's not that I swear but I talk about subjects that little ears should not hear. You don't realize how much they are listening. The other day my 4-year-old grandson called to tell me a secret. He said that his best friend's daddy is in jail and no one is supposed to know. My daughter and I had a good laugh about it and not sure if it is true or not. Maybe he overheard the parents talking when he was having a play date?????
ReplyDeleteAwww how sweet that he felt he could trust you with that.
DeleteKids do have ears and memories like elephants!
PMS - Potty Mouth Syndrome - YASS!!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I remember the first time our son heard me swear. That was a very long day.
ReplyDeleteRight, Stephen? They latch onto those fooking words! I try really hard to watch and I'm getting really creative when I screw up.
DeleteI have the same problem. Parrot grand daughter and all. My word is SOB now I say, "Son of a biscuit eatin' bulldog". It works!
ReplyDeleteSon of a bicuit! You are creative!! Adding eating bulldog is genius!
DeleteYou are my cursing hero
Love this!!!
ReplyDeleteWhy is it they only seem to remember the stuff we want them to forget?!?!?
Well, at least you can be proud that the little sweet was using the word correctly. You may have given her a potty mouth, but at least you also taught her proper diction. Oh wait, is that another bad word?!?!
You're too funny, Gina!!
DeleteGiggling then I had to go and follow because I need more giggles! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Donna! Anne is awesome!
DeleteI used to curse a lot. Like a sailor! But then I decided to just stop. I don't know but it just lost its appeal to me.
ReplyDeleteThis has been fun to read though. :)
It's hard to give up cursing.....
DeleteThis is too funny, and my great aunts were just like this. Then, they used to curse for real in Italian around us.
ReplyDeleteYou ever see Johnny Dangerously? You fargin sneaky bastage!
I LOVE THAT LINE!!!!
DeleteI adore everything about this post. it's basically my life. me time = best time.xxx
ReplyDeleteAmen to that!
Delete