Mother Effing Son of a Bisquick!!
As you may or may not know, I don't cuss. I do however realize that people around me do and so I'll incorporate cussing into my writing for other characters, but never for myself. Of course the biggest reason for this is church. There was no point in getting in trouble over something senseless so why bother? Really, if I was going to get spanked (and everyone in my church was allowed to spank us) it was going to be because I was kissing a boy or pulling LaTonya's hair, not because I let a bad word slip.
So it stuck with me. There are a few words I'll say because I didn't realize they were curse words. The first time I ever heard the word "bastard" was on Kindergarten Cop and with Ahnold's accent it sounded like "bastid" so I went like the next two days exclaiming, "BASTID!" to everyone and everything.
I was a nerd, yes, we've established that.
It wasn't until my foster sister said, "Stacey, I thought you didn't cuss?" that I realized the error of my ways. Still though, it was funny so I pull it out from time to time. The other word that I will say is "cunt" which I never thought was as terrible as a lot of people assume. I think bitch is FAR worse than cunt. Cunt just seems like a British person with a Scottish brogue exclaiming about their inabilities "I cunt due et! I cunt due anyfing!" (there's a British man with a Scottish brogue inside my head who is rolling on the floor laughing at the accuracy of my portrayal, feel free to join him).
I didn't even like saying "hell" unless it had to do with the location, mostly because as a child the concept of Hell was so real to me that "Go to Hell!" was the ultimate offense. I wouldn't wish hell on the worst person in the world, how could people be so nonchalant about it? I was a cute little church girl, completely naive to the fact that there were people who actually didn't believe what I did. I'd heard of other religions, but I thought they were just being rebellious and would eventually find the way back to God as dictated through Christianity. Yes, I know it sounds silly, but really even today the concept of true Atheism bewilders me. I can't imagine just thinking that after we die that's it, being satisfied with never knowing what our purpose is.
But I digress. So one day I was at school sitting at the lunch table wasting time and telling jokes. Some kid said something, and to this day I can't remember what it was except that it included the word "fucking" and I repeated it. It's funny how my memory works. I can't remember yesterday, can barely remember anything before seven (my first kiss), but there are times I can remember every single detail of a situation so vividly. This was one of those times. I remember sitting there laughing and then I started to speak, at the time I didn't even feel the word come out of my mouth, can't hear it, but I know it was said.
"Stacey! I've never heard you say that word before!" Tammy Lynn Wynette gasped and brought her hand to her chest in semi-faux flabberghasted manner.
"I know... and you never will again." Yes, it was that intense, and so was I. My mind was made up. I wouldn't follow the footsteps of my peers and just throw words into the wind, I would stand up for lingual purity and demand the participation of my friends while around me. From that time until I was sixteen I was a noncussing force to be reckoned with. Profanities were met with my trademark sneer and chastisement,
"You're so much more smarter than that. Think of five words to replace the one you just used, mmkay?" And the kicker was I got away with it! I don't understand how I didn't fully piss people off and draw them away, but give the flock a shepherd of stability and they will follow. It was pretty awesome, I was such a different girl then. Ruthless, not uncaring, but unwilling to put up with even the smallest amount of BS. This was before I started to lose everything, so I had a strong connection of family, church family, and friends. It didn't matter what any random person thought of me, because I had stability underneath me always holding me up.
I miss many parts of that girl, but that's another post entirely. This post is about what happened at sixteen that made me see cussing in a new light. Now, before I tell you this story I must clarify that I've never thought as cussing as a gateway to adulthood. The reasons kids shouldn't cuss is because they are still developing their vocabulary. Cussing is about emphasis and accent, not about just throwing something out there because you don't know anything else to say.
Abbreviating words doesn't make me a kid, it makes me sensitive to the fact that although I don't cuss, I'm accomodating your need to. This whole "We're adults! We can say what we want!" movement is a fallacy because being adults means we know better than to always say what we want. Really, if you're going to cuss, just do it, but don't jump on me for not doing it and don't think I'm not doing it just to show you up. I don't cuss because I don't want to. I'm far too corny to pull it off and I like to be an example that you don't necessarily have to cuss if you don't want to. I think that's the most adult, being in control of your choices and sticking by them.
Thank you for listening to my sermon, if you'd like to throw a couple of dollars into the collection plate for the building fun (read: gym membership) please feel free.
So, when I was sixteen I started dating The Boy (and by dating I mean "making out in the church basement and awkward mutual handjobs (evidently he got his fingering tips from The Wood and/or porn so it wasn't comfortable and it wasn't sexy. I remember one time coming up for air and yelling, "Get your hands out of my crotch and just fondle my boobs, God!" Man he sucked, but he was CUTE!). Can I also interject what it is to be a true church kid? Like, I know some of y'all went to church, but that doesn't mean you were "chu'ch kids". Our weekly schedule went a little something like this:
Sun: 9am - Sunday School, 11am - Morning Worship, 6pm - YPWW (Young People Willing Workers), 7pm - Evening Service/Communion
Mon: 7pm - Choir Practice
Tue: 6pm - Usher Board Meeting, 7pm - Home & Foreign Mission (AWESOPME Bible study series, I learned so much during these services, and they were interactive and I'd ask every question under the sun)
Wed: Free day mostly, unless there was a special practice for Youth Day every third Sunday in the month
Thur: 6pm - Sunshine Band rehearsal (little kids), 7pm - Children of the Kingdom rehearsal (juniors), 8pm - Step chain/liturgical dance, etc
Fri: 7pm - Friday Night Service
Sat: 6am - Morning Prayer
If you had a schedule anything like that? You know what it is to be a Church Kid. The church literally becomes your second home. You discover all the secret nooks and crannies, you can walk it with your eyes closed, you know where you can go to cop a quick nap undetected, or where to kiss a boy without being bothered. The sanctuary was sacred, but the church was our community center. So when I write about making out and doing nasty thangs, yes, I know I was wrong, but at the time we thought it was fine. Whatever, you guys suck.
So, where was I? Oh yeah, so one summer The Boy came to my house and we started kissing and messing around. He was on top of me and I knew he thought he was going to get some, but I also knew better and that he'd already given some to this skank we both knew and that he did so without protection so he wasn't getting any from me, but a little kissing couldn't hurt, right? We're grinding and moaning and necking and then he kisses up my neck to my ear and whispers,
"I wanna fuck the shit out of you."
HO-LY CRAP DOCTOR COX!
"What? What did you just say?!" I pushed him up and he's hovering above me on his arms with his hard dick grinding between my legs and his breath is hot and his eyes are on fire and he says to me,
"I said, I want to fuck (he lightly kisses my bottom lip) the shi-it (this nigga effing LICKS THE TIP OF MY NOSE, I think I went a little crosseyed) out of you. And I know you want me to, so why don't you open these legs so I can see your pussy cry."
Alright y'all. Let's... let's come together (not like that, or maybe..) okay? Like... alright, so here's the thing. Umm, it's not that I'm a whore necessarily, or that I like it when dudes, umm. Okay, look, we're just going to put it out on the table. At sixteen years of age, with a seventeen year old hunky adonis over me, that? HOTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!! HOT! Like, OMG I might just not be a virgin at the end of today hott. Like, maybe I should get pregnant so I can have him forever omg did I really go to psychoville that fast hott? Is this what sex does to you?
"Yeah, you have to leave." I start to get up but he lays his bare chest on my heaving one and- did I mention we were naked? I've always been a big girl and really didn't have issues with it since it was obvious. I knew I had a figure and I knew I had big breasts so it was cool. The only time I felt it as a bad thing was when I saw The Boy's other girlfriends, who were usually of the blonde petite category, and I could never suss why he messed with me, except that maybe he was in love with me, though he'd never say it. Anyhow though, I'm usually very modest, I've seen every single one of my girlfriends and family members naked but they've never seen me in less than and bra and panties. I don't know what it is, but I just always feel odd exposing myself in that manner. Except with him. I could be completely naked with him and not care and his body told me he enjoyed it so I was fine.
"You know you don't want me to leave, your nipples don't want me to leave." he said as he began to make his way down. I was saved by the bell, the phone rang and it was my mom telling me she was on her way home. I rushed The Boy out of the house and quickly cleaned up. I called him later that night,
"Say that thing you said to me earlier."
"What? Over the phone?"
"Yeah." And I loved it. I'd watched porn before so I knew about cussing in sex, but it was always so brut and gross, "Take it you filthy bitch! Suck my dick you fucking slut!" (I don't know why I had access to that kind of porn or how, but looking back I really got a twisted view, it was either this or romance novels, or gay sex, or Nancy Friday). Then I met a dude that could cuss you out and make fools cry and he used this power wisely and provided me with lots of entertainment. The first girl I heard actually cuss was Nina and she would cuss dudes out and make them want to kiss her in the same breath. I always thought that was funny.
I still never cuss, I never got into the swing of it and again, I just don't think it's for me, but I don't really mind when other people do. My one thing is that I don't like being cussed at "Fuck you!" will get you slapped (or internet slapped if it's an online buddy), and I don't like being called bitch at all. Everyone I know so far has respected that, even without really knowing it which is fun. I recently got into a fight with some guy who yammered on about bullshit and whatever but he never called me out of my name and he didn't cuss at me. I'm glad that's the default around me.
It's still fun running into awkward situations where cussing is permitted but I still won't do it. I remember one youth day I was reading a scripture that had "ass" in it like three times. You should have seen me,
"Then saith the man unto his DONKEY, did not you profess these things to be true? Did these words not pour out of thy mouth oh DONKEY? For if a mere DONKEY speaketh the Holy Word, how much more so should I? The proprietor of this DONKEY." Those aren't the exact words, but you get the gist, and the pastor nodded reveling in the power of the Word and my mom just looked at me and shook her head, and all the kids in the choir giggled causing me to giggle.
There's also those moments when my mom cusses and it throws me off. She was a church girl but got into some secular hottness in her teens and twenties so every now and again she'll slip up.
"Yeah, then we got into a little fight because we called him "The B" and he didn't like it so-"
"Wait, the what? You called him the what?"
"'The B', Mom. Like, B-i-t-c-h, a 'B'"
"Oh! You mean bitch?"
"Well I certainly hope so now."
"Now who was being a bitch?"
"Stop saying it!" Then there was a time when my mom called me, completely reamed me out, and then called back a few minutes later all,
"Sorry I was being such a bitch to you earlier." and I was all,
"Oh my God mom, it's okay! I mean, you weren't being that, you're my mom!" She's hilarious. When I was telling this story to Ronnie, Ronnie was all, "your mom cusses, but you don't?" and I was like, "well, yeah."
And that's pretty much the answer I'll always give, and when someone asks me to elaborate, I'll tell them to get a nice cup of hot cocoa, cause I have a story to tell.
So it stuck with me. There are a few words I'll say because I didn't realize they were curse words. The first time I ever heard the word "bastard" was on Kindergarten Cop and with Ahnold's accent it sounded like "bastid" so I went like the next two days exclaiming, "BASTID!" to everyone and everything.
I was a nerd, yes, we've established that.
It wasn't until my foster sister said, "Stacey, I thought you didn't cuss?" that I realized the error of my ways. Still though, it was funny so I pull it out from time to time. The other word that I will say is "cunt" which I never thought was as terrible as a lot of people assume. I think bitch is FAR worse than cunt. Cunt just seems like a British person with a Scottish brogue exclaiming about their inabilities "I cunt due et! I cunt due anyfing!" (there's a British man with a Scottish brogue inside my head who is rolling on the floor laughing at the accuracy of my portrayal, feel free to join him).
I didn't even like saying "hell" unless it had to do with the location, mostly because as a child the concept of Hell was so real to me that "Go to Hell!" was the ultimate offense. I wouldn't wish hell on the worst person in the world, how could people be so nonchalant about it? I was a cute little church girl, completely naive to the fact that there were people who actually didn't believe what I did. I'd heard of other religions, but I thought they were just being rebellious and would eventually find the way back to God as dictated through Christianity. Yes, I know it sounds silly, but really even today the concept of true Atheism bewilders me. I can't imagine just thinking that after we die that's it, being satisfied with never knowing what our purpose is.
But I digress. So one day I was at school sitting at the lunch table wasting time and telling jokes. Some kid said something, and to this day I can't remember what it was except that it included the word "fucking" and I repeated it. It's funny how my memory works. I can't remember yesterday, can barely remember anything before seven (my first kiss), but there are times I can remember every single detail of a situation so vividly. This was one of those times. I remember sitting there laughing and then I started to speak, at the time I didn't even feel the word come out of my mouth, can't hear it, but I know it was said.
"Stacey! I've never heard you say that word before!" Tammy Lynn Wynette gasped and brought her hand to her chest in semi-faux flabberghasted manner.
"I know... and you never will again." Yes, it was that intense, and so was I. My mind was made up. I wouldn't follow the footsteps of my peers and just throw words into the wind, I would stand up for lingual purity and demand the participation of my friends while around me. From that time until I was sixteen I was a noncussing force to be reckoned with. Profanities were met with my trademark sneer and chastisement,
"You're so much more smarter than that. Think of five words to replace the one you just used, mmkay?" And the kicker was I got away with it! I don't understand how I didn't fully piss people off and draw them away, but give the flock a shepherd of stability and they will follow. It was pretty awesome, I was such a different girl then. Ruthless, not uncaring, but unwilling to put up with even the smallest amount of BS. This was before I started to lose everything, so I had a strong connection of family, church family, and friends. It didn't matter what any random person thought of me, because I had stability underneath me always holding me up.
I miss many parts of that girl, but that's another post entirely. This post is about what happened at sixteen that made me see cussing in a new light. Now, before I tell you this story I must clarify that I've never thought as cussing as a gateway to adulthood. The reasons kids shouldn't cuss is because they are still developing their vocabulary. Cussing is about emphasis and accent, not about just throwing something out there because you don't know anything else to say.
Abbreviating words doesn't make me a kid, it makes me sensitive to the fact that although I don't cuss, I'm accomodating your need to. This whole "We're adults! We can say what we want!" movement is a fallacy because being adults means we know better than to always say what we want. Really, if you're going to cuss, just do it, but don't jump on me for not doing it and don't think I'm not doing it just to show you up. I don't cuss because I don't want to. I'm far too corny to pull it off and I like to be an example that you don't necessarily have to cuss if you don't want to. I think that's the most adult, being in control of your choices and sticking by them.
Thank you for listening to my sermon, if you'd like to throw a couple of dollars into the collection plate for the building fun (read: gym membership) please feel free.
So, when I was sixteen I started dating The Boy (and by dating I mean "making out in the church basement and awkward mutual handjobs (evidently he got his fingering tips from The Wood and/or porn so it wasn't comfortable and it wasn't sexy. I remember one time coming up for air and yelling, "Get your hands out of my crotch and just fondle my boobs, God!" Man he sucked, but he was CUTE!). Can I also interject what it is to be a true church kid? Like, I know some of y'all went to church, but that doesn't mean you were "chu'ch kids". Our weekly schedule went a little something like this:
Sun: 9am - Sunday School, 11am - Morning Worship, 6pm - YPWW (Young People Willing Workers), 7pm - Evening Service/Communion
Mon: 7pm - Choir Practice
Tue: 6pm - Usher Board Meeting, 7pm - Home & Foreign Mission (AWESOPME Bible study series, I learned so much during these services, and they were interactive and I'd ask every question under the sun)
Wed: Free day mostly, unless there was a special practice for Youth Day every third Sunday in the month
Thur: 6pm - Sunshine Band rehearsal (little kids), 7pm - Children of the Kingdom rehearsal (juniors), 8pm - Step chain/liturgical dance, etc
Fri: 7pm - Friday Night Service
Sat: 6am - Morning Prayer
If you had a schedule anything like that? You know what it is to be a Church Kid. The church literally becomes your second home. You discover all the secret nooks and crannies, you can walk it with your eyes closed, you know where you can go to cop a quick nap undetected, or where to kiss a boy without being bothered. The sanctuary was sacred, but the church was our community center. So when I write about making out and doing nasty thangs, yes, I know I was wrong, but at the time we thought it was fine. Whatever, you guys suck.
So, where was I? Oh yeah, so one summer The Boy came to my house and we started kissing and messing around. He was on top of me and I knew he thought he was going to get some, but I also knew better and that he'd already given some to this skank we both knew and that he did so without protection so he wasn't getting any from me, but a little kissing couldn't hurt, right? We're grinding and moaning and necking and then he kisses up my neck to my ear and whispers,
"I wanna fuck the shit out of you."
HO-LY CRAP DOCTOR COX!
"What? What did you just say?!" I pushed him up and he's hovering above me on his arms with his hard dick grinding between my legs and his breath is hot and his eyes are on fire and he says to me,
"I said, I want to fuck (he lightly kisses my bottom lip) the shi-it (this nigga effing LICKS THE TIP OF MY NOSE, I think I went a little crosseyed) out of you. And I know you want me to, so why don't you open these legs so I can see your pussy cry."
Alright y'all. Let's... let's come together (not like that, or maybe..) okay? Like... alright, so here's the thing. Umm, it's not that I'm a whore necessarily, or that I like it when dudes, umm. Okay, look, we're just going to put it out on the table. At sixteen years of age, with a seventeen year old hunky adonis over me, that? HOTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!! HOT! Like, OMG I might just not be a virgin at the end of today hott. Like, maybe I should get pregnant so I can have him forever omg did I really go to psychoville that fast hott? Is this what sex does to you?
"Yeah, you have to leave." I start to get up but he lays his bare chest on my heaving one and- did I mention we were naked? I've always been a big girl and really didn't have issues with it since it was obvious. I knew I had a figure and I knew I had big breasts so it was cool. The only time I felt it as a bad thing was when I saw The Boy's other girlfriends, who were usually of the blonde petite category, and I could never suss why he messed with me, except that maybe he was in love with me, though he'd never say it. Anyhow though, I'm usually very modest, I've seen every single one of my girlfriends and family members naked but they've never seen me in less than and bra and panties. I don't know what it is, but I just always feel odd exposing myself in that manner. Except with him. I could be completely naked with him and not care and his body told me he enjoyed it so I was fine.
"You know you don't want me to leave, your nipples don't want me to leave." he said as he began to make his way down. I was saved by the bell, the phone rang and it was my mom telling me she was on her way home. I rushed The Boy out of the house and quickly cleaned up. I called him later that night,
"Say that thing you said to me earlier."
"What? Over the phone?"
"Yeah." And I loved it. I'd watched porn before so I knew about cussing in sex, but it was always so brut and gross, "Take it you filthy bitch! Suck my dick you fucking slut!" (I don't know why I had access to that kind of porn or how, but looking back I really got a twisted view, it was either this or romance novels, or gay sex, or Nancy Friday). Then I met a dude that could cuss you out and make fools cry and he used this power wisely and provided me with lots of entertainment. The first girl I heard actually cuss was Nina and she would cuss dudes out and make them want to kiss her in the same breath. I always thought that was funny.
I still never cuss, I never got into the swing of it and again, I just don't think it's for me, but I don't really mind when other people do. My one thing is that I don't like being cussed at "Fuck you!" will get you slapped (or internet slapped if it's an online buddy), and I don't like being called bitch at all. Everyone I know so far has respected that, even without really knowing it which is fun. I recently got into a fight with some guy who yammered on about bullshit and whatever but he never called me out of my name and he didn't cuss at me. I'm glad that's the default around me.
It's still fun running into awkward situations where cussing is permitted but I still won't do it. I remember one youth day I was reading a scripture that had "ass" in it like three times. You should have seen me,
"Then saith the man unto his DONKEY, did not you profess these things to be true? Did these words not pour out of thy mouth oh DONKEY? For if a mere DONKEY speaketh the Holy Word, how much more so should I? The proprietor of this DONKEY." Those aren't the exact words, but you get the gist, and the pastor nodded reveling in the power of the Word and my mom just looked at me and shook her head, and all the kids in the choir giggled causing me to giggle.
There's also those moments when my mom cusses and it throws me off. She was a church girl but got into some secular hottness in her teens and twenties so every now and again she'll slip up.
"Yeah, then we got into a little fight because we called him "The B" and he didn't like it so-"
"Wait, the what? You called him the what?"
"'The B', Mom. Like, B-i-t-c-h, a 'B'"
"Oh! You mean bitch?"
"Well I certainly hope so now."
"Now who was being a bitch?"
"Stop saying it!" Then there was a time when my mom called me, completely reamed me out, and then called back a few minutes later all,
"Sorry I was being such a bitch to you earlier." and I was all,
"Oh my God mom, it's okay! I mean, you weren't being that, you're my mom!" She's hilarious. When I was telling this story to Ronnie, Ronnie was all, "your mom cusses, but you don't?" and I was like, "well, yeah."
And that's pretty much the answer I'll always give, and when someone asks me to elaborate, I'll tell them to get a nice cup of hot cocoa, cause I have a story to tell.