Sentence Enhancers

I feel such love after my last post. You get me, you really get me! All my fellow cussers seem to get all warm and fuzzy inside when the air is punctuated with a well-spat Shit!, Damn!, Fuckin-A!, or other favorite expression of extreme emotion. Just like me! It feels like, Ah, yes. I've been heard! I've made my point. The world is as it should be.

Over the years, these spicy sentence enhancers (in the venacular of kiddie phenom Sponge Bob) have evolved, much like apes into men, from knuckles dragging the ground and fists pounding their chests to -- oh wait. Um, oh yeah, evolution like not dragging us around by our hair anymore. So while cussing is more acceptable today than it was during the last couple thousand years, adults have adopted special ways of teaching their children about it.

Now, as my parents begat six world-class cussers, so did I beget four trash-talkers -- sort of like those Native American wind-talkers but more readily decipherable, especially where sign language is involved. A quickly flipped middle finger is like sending a Hallmark card, when you care enough to send your very best without an envelope or stamp. So everyone in our family makes grand efforts to curb our joy of profanity so that our littlest ones won't get in trouble at school for saying things we shouldn't -- er, things they shouldn't. But try as we might, some stuff gets through a child's undeveloped filter zone. They just aren't quick enough with the cover-your-ears LA-LA-LA-LA-LA defensive maneuver.

Once last summer, four-year-old Miss America was waiting in the car with her mom, TeeGee. Since it was unbearably hot outside, TeeGee had the A/C blasting. From her car seat in the back, Miss America told her mother, in her very sweet, tiny voice, "Mom, it's fuckin' cold back here."

In the driver's seat, TeeGee's head rotated a few times before she could set her eyes on her angelic daughter. "What?"

Miss America: "It's fuckin' cold back here."

So as not to make a big deal about her daughter's lack of etiquette and encouraging a repeat of those magic sentence enhancers, TeeGee simply turned down the air temp and redirected the fans. Then she called me on her cell and remarked how funny and cute and bright her daughter was. Tee-Gee would never be able to explain this sense of pride to Miss America -- at least not until the kid was old enough to send her own Hallmark cards.

I think TeeGee handled the situation correctly. How would YOU have handled that situation, you modern millennium people?

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