life is just a cocktail party on the street
“Do I look like a motherfucking role model?”
— “Gangsta Gangsta,” NWA
It has been brought to my attention that my husband and I are now pillars of the community. The press has been calling. Sometimes several times a day. One of us may have given testimony at a school board meeting while the other was home tending to a sick kid and his overly-rambunctious sister.
And it has been further brought to my attention that I offended someone (eh, probably more than one person, but just one bothered to e-mail) last week with this post. My usage of the word “fuck” and “the reference to watermelons,” specifically.
Watermelon seems like an innocent enough word but really, it is not. I am aware of this and thought I made my point rather succinctly. I was merely describing the first time I figured out that white people think they are “bonding” with African-Americans when they talk loudly and state, “I, too, adore watermelon, much like your people do!”
This is not cool. You do not want to get that started.
“It ain’t that kind of party.”
Leon Dudley, former principal of Jefferson High School, North Portland, Ore.
So. You were offended. I don’t know what to tell you. “Stop reading this blog” comes to mind, but that seems so… final, to send a reader away like that. I like readers! They pay the bills! Oh, wait, no they don’t, the advertisers do. Go click on my Google ads, readers. Anyway, words are tricky. Ask Cynthia Harris about that one.
Nonetheless, I would like to stand by my reference to watermelon. And I’d like to stand by quoting the girl from my grade school who told one of the other students: Boy, you are fucking with my nerves. I cannot rewrite my own history, people, as much as I would like to sometimes. I did play mumblety peg and pitch pennies in grade school. I was excellent at both sports and won a fair amount of money.
I did begin drinking at age 10 and smoking cigarettes at age 11. And after hearing the girl say that to the guy — and he listened to her — this, too, was new in my world — a guy listening to a girl… wow. Well, at that point yes, I did learn that “sometimes black girls can be mean, but they totally fucking rock. Fuck yeah.” (To quote myself.) (Because, why not?)
I suggest that you crib from this list and substitute the following words whenever I start cussing and you get nervous:
1) Oh my heck! for Oh my GAWD!
2) Owie! for Goddammit shit motherfucker (my daughter: “Mom, you teach Sunday school now. You hafta stop cussing like that!” Me, crossing my fingers behind my back: “I’ll try.”)
3) Cheese and rice for Jesus Christ
4) Jeebus for Jesus
5) Well, you can just forget about that, buster! for screw that
and…
6) Dagnabit! for Why don’t you stick it in my eye and then I’ll be able to see that you’re fucking me? (No, I did not make that up, I swear to you — that’s how the moms talk in my neighborhood. Could I possibly invent that expression? No, I am not that creative. Dagnabit, I wish I was.)
, 
.
Just remember us little folks as you become famous! Now I can say, I knew WM before she was a pillar.
September 25th, 2007 | #
Heh heh heh. Did you see that Rock Star Mommy has been stopping by? And she’s going to send me a clown nose to wear to school board meetings.
http://www.rockstarmommy.com/2.....p_soon.php
Now I *know* I’m famous!
“Baby I’m a star!”
— Prince
September 25th, 2007 | #
OMG! Stick it in my eye! HOW FANTASTIC!!! Thank you. Jeebus. I think my life may well be complete with the addition of that little ditty. Thank you, Wacky Mommy! You teach me the best bad words.
September 25th, 2007 | #
“Dumit” for Damnit courtesy of Sister Rose my 2nd grade teacher.
“Fiddledeedee” for “f**k” f**k” “f**k”
An F’n Haiku for WM
Holy crap Jebus
I swear I won’t swear too much
Sunday school teacher
September 25th, 2007 | #
ha ha ha ha can’t…. stop… laughing.
I spent a weekend away from my impressionable almost-2-year-old, and the first thing I could think to say to my husband was “Man, I can curse like a sailor now!”
September 25th, 2007 | #
heeheeheehee ha!
September 25th, 2007 | #
I forgot about “Cheese and rice!” but I used to love “Sunken ditch!” for Sonofabitch! Some guy I used to work with used to say that.
Thanks for this post. Totally cracked me up. Some people really have too much time on their hands and waste too much brain power on the things we can’t change when there are so many more important things in the world to be worried about. I thought that the original post was very poignant.
September 25th, 2007 | #
J. Lynne,
Thank you.
September 25th, 2007 | #
Fuckin’ watermelon!
September 25th, 2007 | #
We were always very Biblical round here, and used to say “Son of a perverse and rebellious woman!” Saul calls David that in I Samuel.
I remember the first time I realized racism still existed–in my innocence (and all-white upbringing), I imagined we were past that now. It was painful, really, to learn that it was not in the past.
Still, though, at least we’re talking about it here in America. In some parts of the world (Mauritania), they’re not even this far yet. At least it’s now (as of July, 2007) an actual crime to own a slave! Progress, people, progress.
September 25th, 2007 | #
I am that perverse and rebellious woman, I’m thinking. You just cannot beat the Bible when it comes to good insults.
Until just a few years ago it was legal to sell a child in Oregon. It is now illegal. Here’s to progress.
September 25th, 2007 | #
Cuss your frackin’ head off. And I may use “son of a perverse and rebellious woman.” That’s good.
September 25th, 2007 | #
In the words of Bart Simpson, “Hey dad, heard you swearing. Mind if I join in? Crap, boobs, crap.”
Or in the words of a certain little blond five-year-old I know (ahem), “Mommy said shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
September 25th, 2007 | #
Y’all, stop it! I’m supposed to be working! Here’s a good west Indian one: “haul yuh mudder-arse!”
September 26th, 2007 | #
You…rock.
Carry on.
September 30th, 2007 | #