The Cussing Story

So, Question for all the Millenials in the room: Have your parents ever lied to you? Like right to your face? I know. You don’t wanna admit it cause you feel like they are hovering above your head right now and if you agree with me, ya gonna get slapped… Hell, I know in some households, saying the word lie would get you a Bad Boy smack…

But, really though… It’s just me and you, they’re not looking.. Has it ever happened to you? Mom or Dad ever just lied so hard you wanted to call them a rug… behind their back? This is about the first time my mother lied to me… and it was WHOLLY unnecessary!! Like REALLY!! It’s also the second moment I was madew aware that she was crazy… Um... She’s-- she’s not behind me, is she? Good.

So, I was a kid… like MAYBE in 1st or 2nd grade, I truly don’t remember which… that doesn’t matter though cause I remember the days proceedings. I got to school for the day and I was playing around with a few friends outside and I heard someone say a word… What that word is, I don’t remember, but it would be deemed an expletive… you know, a bad word… One of those three, four, or 5 letter-words a child of a religious mother should NEVER. EVER. SAY.

So... Whatever it was, and I really wish I could remember cause I don’t know how bad it was.. My friends were saying it… and there were OOHs & then repeats of the word… and it kinda subsisted for the entirety of the day… So, I, at this point, haven’t said the word cause my friends were acting so TABOO about saying it… Like, I noticed they’d say it among us… but not when adults were around… and there was true fascination with this word…. So, I, being the good kid I am, go home, fix a picnic (something I was prone to do in our living room as a latch key kid with a mother who got off a couple hours after I was home from school) and just waited....

Mom got home & sat on the couch, tired. I handed her the Microwaved personal pan pizza I made her and we talked about our day… Somewhere in the conversation, I go, “Mama… I have a question.”

“What?” she said

I said to her “I think I heard a bad word at school today.”

She said, “Oh really? What?”

Now, the look in her eye wasn’t menacing or scary, but I felt something that told me DON’T SAY IT! It’s at this point, you should know, I was a pretty intelligent kid… and Extremely empathetic. I could feel everything and that, coupled with intuition, gave me this hyper-awareness: I could sense & predict things before they happened. So I said, “I don’t wanna say it.”

She looked perplexed and asked, “Why not?”

I told the truth. “If I say it... and it’s a bad word, you’re gonna hit me.”

Pause: If you’ve had this moment in life, please share this story with others & talk about your experiences. I know I have some Struggle Siblings out there and these situations will make for interesting conversations in certain circles. OK: Back to the Story.

As stated before, I was no fool. If I said this word, whatever it was, I knew she was gonna hit me, but she reassured me it was ok… Well, actually, now that I think about it, she didn’t really reassure me as much as her calm look did, but her words said, “Boy, just say it.”

I stood there, silently. She again said, “Say it.” Following up with “I’m not gonna hit you.”

With that promise intact & my trust activated, I took a breath, opened my mouth & officially cussed in front of my mother for the first time…

And as quickly as I cussed, she slapped me in the mouth… My mouth was still open so she'd hit my teeth. I hit the floor, immediately crying. She looked at me & said, “Don’t ever say that word again!” and walked away.

All I could think was: SHE'S CRAZY! She told me she wasn’t gonna do it… and she did it… WHYYYY?!?!?

To this day, even as I’m talking about it… I wondered why?? Why lie about it?? What did you gain? Was this some kind of twisted game to you? I left that situation with more questions than answers, but I can say one thing for sure. She DEFINITELY slapped that word out of my mouth and my head cause, for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was… and I have to imagine I haven’t used it since.

So... good job, Mom?