Put me next to a baby and the first word out of my mouth is "F#$." It never fails. I don't mean to do it, it's not a reaction. It's almost like sudden onset tourettes. I had lunch with my friend and her baby yesterday, and somehow the topic turned to politics. I was pretty good, keeping my mouth shut until that monster-under-the-bed topic, religion, came up and then all of a sudden, the profanities started flying. I could see her baby, pudgy and perfect-skin cuteness, shaping his little mouth into an F sound and I flashed forward to the future where my friend called me screaming, “his first word should have been Mommy. Not mother-f@#$%!”
She would not have been the first mother who has gotten upset with me. This past Christmas Eve, I gave my pal CW’s step-children a special treat when, as we were opening gifts, I commented on a very “unique” gift by saying, “what the F#$!” I knew when the kids mouths flew open, their eyes went wide and their hair stood straight up that they had never heard that word before, except maybe at the movies.
On airplanes, I am the poor soul who gets stuck next to the crying baby. It is karma for all the F words I’ve lobbed in my life around children. Just the other day on a flight back from Vegas, I said to a mother who was trying to console her crying child, “well, you know, it’s gotta be the f#$%*@^g turbulence that has her upset.” Wow. Can that mom shoot a nasty look..
I have a personal relationship with the F word. Some people find it prosaic and lament that people could come up with something more unique. What the F@#$ is up with that? The F word is descriptive of the emotion you are feeling. Something can be “F’ing brilliant” and the person you are talking to knows you love it. “F that,” means you hate something and “I f’ing hate you,” means you really, really hate something, as in “I f’ing hate you, Dick Cheney.”
So to any mothers reading this, if I’m coming ‘round, lock up your babies or at least get them earmuffs. I sincerely mean no disrespect, but man oh man, I can’t seem to keep my f!@#$%& mouth shut.
