Profanity is a spice. It should be used to lightly heighten the flavor of what is already an essentially good dish.
The eff-word was once the most rare and powerful of profane words. Used properly, it packs a wallop, like a pinch of potent spice.
Overuse of the eff-word is like dumping a mug full of cayenne pepper on an 8-ounce serving of prime rib.
Not only does it render the dish unpalatable. It makes the doltish chef seem like a stranger to his own kitchen.
This very morning, I blurted out the eff-word within earshot of my 4th grade daughter.
I was in pain, trying to figure out how to put on my "boot," a cumbersome post-operative plastic brace with too many black Velcro straps flapping about like live anchovies. I have to wear this boot because, while loping across my yard, I landed oddly on my left foot and broke it.
The contraption on my leg is Frankensteinian, different enough for my daughter to think it’s cool. "I wish I had a broken foot," she said.
"And I wish I was blind," I added sarcastically. "So we could get a doggie."
My daughter's eyes widened. "Really?" she asked. My sick joke flew right over her head. The word "doggie" she heard. She has been begging for a puppy for more than a year.
Outside the leaves fell. This would be one autumn where I, an avid walker, wouldn’t become one with the trails of the Gorge.
"Great," I snarled. "I’ll be ready to hike by the time the first blizzard hits."
Except between the words "first" and "blizzard" I added that four-lettered mug of cayenne.
If the first eff-word didn’t get my daughter’s attention, the second one did. She stopped in her tracks and widened her eyes. Of all the railing I do against mindless TV and movies and guttural music, this was one time I couldn't pass the buck. I'm the one who dumped the garbage in my own living room.
When my little girl and I hear the eff-word in public, I point out that the people say it because they are incapable of shaping their ideas with words that have real meaning. I tell her it is like punching a wall in frustration.
Maybe then it is to my credit that my daughter hates profanity, that it reveals to her that her folks aren't in control of themselves, and that in turn makes her feel unprotected. She was buoyant imagining a puppy. That yielded instantly to disgust. There's nothing sadder a child who is disappointed in the behavior of an adult.
My wife glared at me, too, like I'd brought Larry Flynt home to read bedtime stories. I knew that we’d be taking a break from renting Sopranos videos.
It’s amazing how soon after twice spitting out the eff-word I could bring to mind the Prayer of Saint Francis.
"Where there is hatred, let me sow love," goes the prayer. "Where there is darkness, light."
The Prayer of Saint Francis challenges me to take every moment of human interaction, big and small, and because of my presence, improve it.
So I began by thinking of Lenny Bruce.
Bruce had a routine where a wife catches her husband with another woman. "Who is that woman?" the wife cries. The man leaps up from bed and says, "WHAT other woman?"
Deny, deny, deny.
It was a departure from my typical Franciscan solution, but I was under the gun. I quickly veered off onto yet another road not taken: I would speak mumbo-jumbo so that anyone who'd heard me say the bad words wouldn't quite be sure WHAT they had heard. I channeled the spirit of (the pre-tumorous unrepentent) Lee Atwater and began "spinning" like a top.
"With my LUCK I'll never get this boot to fit," I said. "I have no LUCK with these things. If I wear this boot in the yard, it'll get filled with MUCK. I won't be able to step into the TRUCK. Gas prices sure can run AMUCK, but can you believe that the price at the pumps was once down to a BUCK---"
"Okay, okay," said my wife, cutting me off. My daughter's eyes brightened again.
"Can I name the dog?" my 9-year-old said. "Can I? Can I?"
But this kid's no dummy. After the puppy fever passes, she'll remember what I preach and recognize when I don't practice it.
I bought myself some time. Now what will I do with it?
