dailydiatribes

I really don't mind having a teenager in the house.  My son is 14 and he really is a lot of fun.  Yes, he hulks around the house and eats a lot and his shoes smell REALLY bad, but these are generally blips on the radar.  He is normally a pretty good kid and his room is cleaner than anyone elses, including mine!!

The one sign of teenage rebellion I have noticed is his language.  Now I am far from pure when it comes to swearing.  To put it delicately, I swear like a one-armed sailor on shore leave who caught crabs from a two bit whore and can't scratch.  Recently, my son has begun experimenting with curse words to see just how far he can push me.

It started out simply enough with the word "crap".  This word delighted him because it wasn't technically really a "bad" word.  It started showing up in his daily vocabulary in seeming innocuous ways.  "I hate this crap," he would say daringly, looking at me to see if I would react.  Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't, depending on the circumstances.  "This is crap," he would holler at his homework.  Or sometimes to his sister "You are such crap!"  I tried to suppress it, I really did, but crap isn't really a bad word, is it? 

My mistake, because from there he progressed to "sucks".  And he discovered the joys of stringing these two words together, one noun/adjective and one verb.  As in:  "this crap sucks!!"  All of a sudden it's a dirty sentence!!  And one that's almost legal!  Nirvana!  Smells like teen spirit to me!

Well, I reprimanded and hollered and fought against it, but slowly, insidiously, these words became a part of his daily lexicon.  By now, I was tired and beaten down and he thought he was the victor with his sucky, crappy words.  That is, until he made the rather colossal error of pushing one button too many.

Friday, the day of my birth and the day many people were coming to celebrate that momentuous occasion with me.  And if you weren't invited, it WAS NOT my fault!  Please blame Teensy or Kiki since they did the inviting at Tim's behest.  Anyway, I was a little keyed up and Josh and Abby were chasing each other through the house like maniacs.  I politely asked them to stop....well, ok, I screamed something along the lines of "you better stop right now before I maim you both for life."

Well, Josh gave me some sort of attitude and I told him to go upstairs and get out of my hair.  And that's when he uttered the infamous phrase, a phrase almost too awful to print here.  Yes, I'm afraid he looked at me, sneered, tossed back his "Bama bangs" and told me to "Kiss off"!!!

A dark red haze of rage descended over my being and I advanced on him with murder in my soul.  "WHAT...DID...YOU...SAY...TO...ME?????"  I asked ominously.  The child is not blessed with a whole lot of self preservation because he said it again "Kiss off".  I snatched up a pink shoe belonging to the goddess and bore down upon him, consumed with rage.

I whacked him with the shoe and he tried to fend me off, yelping "what....what's so bad about "kiss off"????"  All I heard of course, was the words "kiss off" uttered again, so I proceeded to light into him with the shoe.  As I whaled on him, I was lecturing in my calm, June Cleaver voice.  "Don't you (whack) ever let me (whack) hear you say (whack) that again (whack whack) do you under (whack) stand me?? (whack)"

I sent him up the stairs with one final whack for good measure.  I believe I got my point across, because I have not heard the words again.  I can't be sure I stamped it out completely, since a size 11 floppy pink shoe is not the most effective means of communicating displeasure.  Next time, I'll go for the Ivory soap!