Learned to Cuss

At a certain point in my mid-teen years I came to the clear and sudden realization that my older brother was going to marry a girl that I had had a crush on for a pretty good amount of time...Now, don't get too emotional over this statement of seeming teenage romantic nostalgia, you don't know the facts yet...the truth is, she hated me at the time and will admit to that fact today.

This story starts with my Sister-in-law because without her delicate instruction I would be perhaps the least foul-mouthed Irishman alive today, let alone that I would have the worst tone, inflection, affect and emphasis of maybe anybody that had ever cursed or ever would...

In short, at 12 midnight in the Taco Bell parking lot at 771 Stony Point Rd in Santa Rosa, California; the existential summer blonde, my future sister-in-law and ex-crush broke it down and showed a good Christian boy the sheer joy of a properly executed F-word and all of the magical ways that that word could be promulgated.

I remember practicing the spacing, rhythm and tempo of the phrase that she had given me to learn by...frightening yet brilliant in its simplicity: "Fuck you, You fuckin'-fuck!"...Over and over again I would recite the cursing mantra until I felt that I had sufficiently matched her cadence and inflection...I feel a small amount of pride when I tell you today that I'm probably the best and most well-versed F-word enthusiast that I know of...aside of course from my sister-in-law...

She, the wizened instructor. I, the eager grasshopper.
The tools; one word, endless combinations and a smirking sarcasm born of pride in craftsmanship and unbridled enthusiasm.

The next week she taught me the proper letter emphasis of the word Shit...
It went something like this "Shea-It."

I'm still working on Shit, be patient master, be patient.