Back when I was a kid, there were certain words that I was forbidden to use. These words I’m talkin’ about are words you hear every day, but my momma considered them bad words. They were not ugly words, but bad words. There’s a difference, you know. Ugly words are cuss words, and bad words are words that are used as a substitution for ugly words. Here are some of the bad words I couldn’t say. I couldn’t say gosh, golly, gee, darn, durn, or heck. Heck, if I’d said heck in front of my momma, she would have beat the heck out of me. I could say goodness gracious and sakes alive. Don’t ask me why, I just could. 

Bein’ a boy, every once in a while, I’d let a bad word escape. And when I did, there was heck to pay. But never would I let an ugly word slip through my lips. Well, there was that one time.

When I was a senior in high school, I got a job workin’ at Brookshire’s Warehouse, in Tyler. I don’t mean I was given a job, I got the job. For three solid weeks, I would be standin’ outside Mr. Ed Taunton’s office waitin’ to see him about a job. He was the man responsible for hirin’ back then. He was always gracious and would talk to me, but he would tell me there were no openings for part-time help. But, I just had to get a job out there. You see, back then, minimum wage was a $1.60 an hour, and Brookshire’s was payin’ $2.20.  That was big money for a kid back then. I needed that money because I had taken on a pretty expensive endeavor. This endeavor was tryin’ to impress girls. And as you know, impressin’ girls ain’t cheap.

Anywho, Mr. Taunton finally told me one day, that if I was goin’ to camp out outside his office every day, he might as well get some work out of me, and he called a man in and told him he didn’t care what he did with me, but to put me to work, and get me out of his office.

Now, workin’ at that warehouse was probably one of the most fun jobs I’ve ever had. I was in the produce department, and my job was to unload trucks and pick orders. Well, I was workin’ with a bunch of colorful characters, and I learned some stuff that my momma sure wouldn’t approve of, but I thought was pretty cool at the time. One of these was cuss words. Oh, I knew most of the words, but some of those guys really had a command of the ugly word language and would string them into a sentence that not only consisted of every word bein’ a cuss word, but the sentence actually made sense. Bein’ around an environment like that, some things are just bound to rub off. Not makin’ whole sentences with cuss words, but just the words themselves.

Well, one day after work I got home and Momma had supper on the table and everyone was there but me. I sat down and was talkin’ about my day at work, makin’ it sound a whole lot harder than it was. I was talkin’ about the forklift drivers and havin’ to wait on them to pull stuff down from the racks and how sometimes I just couldn’t wait on them and I’d just get the stuff down myself.

“How did you get it down?” asked my mom.

“Aww, it ain’t that hard,” I said, while cuttin’ up a piece of chicken fried steak. “You just reach up there and slap one of them S.O.B.’s down, only I didn’t say “S.O.B”.  I said the real thing; and just as I said it, I realized what I had said.

Suddenly sound ceased to exist. Everything on my plate looked like it was gettin’ really far away and everything started to move in slow motion. My head was down, and for a split second, I thought that maybe she didn’t catch my slip. Slowly, I turned my head and looked at my sister Teri. Her fork was stopped halfway to her mouth, and her eyes were big as saucers. I turned my head back the other way, and looked at my dad. He had grabbed his nose and as tryin’ to suppress a laugh, but instead it looked like he was havin’ a shakin’ fit. I turned my head back down to my plate. My mom had still not said anything. With one eye I finally peeked up past my forehead to look at my mom. She was sittin’ statue still lookin’ right at me. Her face was emotionless, which was scarier than you might think. I looked back down, slowly put a piece of meat in my mouth and slowly chewed. I was gettin’ the feelin’ that this must be what death-row inmates feel like when they’re havin’ their last meal.

“Good steak Mom,” I said, finally lookin’ up.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Good steak,” I replied.

“No,” she growled. “What did you say before that?”

I looked up into the air innocently and thought a moment. “Uh, I don’t remember.”

“You said that you reached up and slapped one of those son of a…..son of a…..,” but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

To make matters worse, my dad snorted, which made me start to laugh, but somehow I suppressed it.  Then my sister put her hand over her mouth and started laughin’. I looked at Mom. Her lips started movin’, pursin’ in and out and I could tell she was tryin’ not to laugh. I was beginnin’ to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally, Mom smiled, and then chuckled. She then pointed her finger at me.

“I never want to hear that word from your lips again, you hear?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes Ma’am,” I said 

And do you know what? She never did.

 

All Rights reserved 6/7/08