This morning I was running late for a meeting and getting ready far too late to comfortably make it in time.  And that’s usually when it starts.  Words that would make most people blush begin to fly out of my mouth as I fumble for my mascara and search for my iphone that invisible elves continue to misplace every morning when I need to leave the house.

This is all much to my husband’s amusement.  He often laughs quietly (for fear of his life), sometimes muttering that he thinks he would hear less cursing if he were suiting up in marine barracks each morning.

Today after my explosive rant while hurriedly applying makeup with one eye on the clock, searching for my phone  and changing clothes at the same time, he suggested that I might think about substituting my litany of four-letter words with military alphabet terminology:  “Foxtrot!  Where’s my mike foxtrotting phone?  Delta it.”

Yesterday after I broke a glass in the dishwasher and exclaimed a few niceties, he asked,”Is that how Honey Boo Boo would say it?”   This is getting serious.  I know I need to clean up my act.

At least I’m becoming more aware and I think I have some semblance of control.  I actually do know when to limit my Sierras, Foxtrots and Deltas in certain circumstances when it would be totally out of line.  So why am I unable to harness that kind of self control more often?  Maybe I need to be checked in somewhere.

This afternoon I asked my almost sixteen year old son if I cursed too much.  When he told me “Well, yes Mom, you do, but it’s sort of but it’s funny.”  I threw out a curse word before asking he was serious.  “Sierra… am I that bad?”  I didn’t even realize the irony.

In a fellow blogger’s recent post, Cursing: An Editorial Style Guide (http://imissyouwheniblink.com/2012/04/26/cursing-an-editorial-style-guide/), his guidelines for optimum profanity usage are explained.

Below is rule number one:

***

1. Show some ingenuity.

Contrary to what you may have heard, using profanity isn’t necessarily a lazy way of speaking or writing. Using the wrong profanity is lazy. Choose all words with equal care, I say. My mother, who by the way is one of the classiest dames you’ll ever meet, has been known to brandish curse words in entirely unique ways, inventing whole new parts of speech. She always has the right expression for a situation. For example, walking into an unkempt room: “Holy shitstorm, it looks like the ass end of destruction in a typhoid whorehouse around here.” [Exit with flourish.] What does it even mean? I don’t know. But somehow I can picture it. She is a genius. Always be creative and specific.

***

I can only hope that one day my boys will refer to the ingenuity of my profanity with the admiration that this blogger has for his mother’s.  I know my college roommates have that kind of admiration for me to this day. I had some doozies my freshman year. They still quote me on a couple of key phrases that broke records for profanity ingenuity.

Today I am grateful that at times I am self-aware enough to know when I need to work on improving my less than ideal habits.  And for my family’s patience while I do so.  Thanks for reading!