When Even Cursing In Pig Latin Isn’t An Option
When your children are babies, you do all sorts of things around them that you wouldn’t do in front of toddlers, like drink milk straight from the jug. Also, cursing, because your baby can’t even talk yet, right? I admit I am one of those parents who curse. Not that I was walking around singing profane lullabies, but I certainly screamed an expletive when a coffee table viciously attacked my toes. Then babies do what they are want to do, which is grow into increasingly sentient beings. This is a real bummer for parents, this constantly having to re-adjust the shape of your jib to meet the unpredictible ocean of parenting. I’ve stated many times my penchant for cursing. Blame my love of cursing on my puritanical up-bringing. Some days I’d like to claim tourette syndrome, but that would be an insult to those suffering from tourette syndrome.
When my children grew old enough to repeat my vocabulary, I resorted to spelling as the next natural progression to further my need to curse. Yes, I think of it as a need. “I can’t believe that S.O.B. can’t clean up his own s-h-i-t!” It was not nearly as satisfying as saying the actual word “shit”, but it was still better than nothing. As a parent, you take what you get. Then the little bastards learned how to spell and I had to give up that ghost. My final line of defense was to curse in pig-latin, though admittedly sometimes I messed that up too. “Did she really get shit-ace-fay-ed?” Most of the time it worked, though, and the adults could all give each other knowing glances of solidarity when we used it successfully. I’ve been cursing in pig-latin ever since. That is, until I couldn’t anymore.
With this back-drop in mind, I report that the Librarian at my twins’ school asked the kids to share with the group the books the children had read over the holiday break. One child asked if books in spanish counted and the librarian assured him it did. “What about story books?” “Yes, those work too.” Another child asked if listening to books on tape were included. The librarian advised, “I don’t care if you read or listened to a book in pig-latin, it counts!”
It was at this point that my daughter Blair held up her hand. “Mr. B? My mom said I’m not allowed to learn pig-latin. She said it’s the only thing she has left.”
Yeah. Now I just curse.