Jake and Nate are keeping lifetime score of any and all verbal transgressions their adult role models may utter in a moment of weakness. My moment of infamy is the time the boys and I were parked at a gas station in Prunedale. We were on our way to Santa Cruz when James was going through treatment and a guy tries to squeeze between my car and another car with a couple of inches of space on either side. Then he has the audacity to blare his horn at me. My car isn’t even running. I most definitely called him a jackass, thus searing my mortal self into the brains of my children forever.
James, however, has a much longer list. Mostly for saying the “cr word” and the “d word” and the “God-d word.” Apparently he used the “cr word” at a birthday party at the Elk’s Club two years ago, and outside a restaurant bathroom in Ojai.
Granddad is also known for saying bad words. The “cr word,” the “sh word” and the “d word.” Nate tells me, “He says the ‘d word’ a lot.” And he further explains, “It makes sense because, you know, Granddad chops wood. And beavers chop wood, so…you know.” These mental connections are my favorite.
But Grandma. Grandma is somehow queen of the profanity tattle tally. I’m told, without hesitation, she swears the most. She says the “sh word.” She’s known for saying “fartin'” a lot, in the same way one might use a different word beginning with f. After a visit last year, Silver became, “that fartin’ rooster.” And Nate must have repeated “that fartin’ rooster” hundreds of times. For months the fartin’ rooster was waking me up at 3:30 in the morning, and 5. And 3:30 in the afternoon. And 5:30PM. And 5:34PM. And 5:37PM. And 5:41PM. All I could think was “that fartin’ rooster.”
Nate has never gotten in trouble for swearing (unlike his brother and the *cough* Gayle’s bakery parking lot incident *cough*)… but if anyone is going to dethrone grandma?
We know. It’s Nate.