Dad-Blasted Youth

Last week was the Widows' Book Club group at church, and they graciously invited me to come talk about MOURNING BECOMES CASSANDRA. I don't imagine any of them read this blog, but if this turns out to be my final post, tell someone that I was bludgeoned to death by women wearing purple.

In most book clubs I've visited, we spend a lot of time talking about the writing process: how do I get my ideas? how do I find the time? how does (self-)publishing work? and so on. And those things were touched on this time, but one woman happened to be in attendance who belonged to the weekly Bible study I co-lead, and she steered the conversation toward the Eastside Academy students we host every several weeks. This in turn brought up two controversial subjects: Cussing and Today's Youth.

I spend a fair amount of time defending the cussing in the book, and you blog devotees know that I've blogged about it more than once. For certain demographics (read: the rather-churchy and Widows' Book Clubs), I do try to warn people ahead of time, but I hadn't gotten to this group. Sure enough, when it came to discussing the f-bombs, I could see one woman's eyebrows going up and up and up. Finally, she burst out with, "Now, I haven't read the book--" (nor will she now, I imagine) "--but I want to know why young people have such terrible mouths! We have such a beautiful language, and those words--!"

This, at least, was a new twist. Usually the cuss-scientious objectors object to me, the Christian, the pastor's wife, using such language. Thankfully I cannot be made to answer for Today's Youth, and I took refuge in a "Well, f--- me, that's kind of beyond the scope of this discussion" (kidding) (about the expletive). Other than recommending she avoid my book, movies PG-13 or higher, and THE SKINHEAD HAMLET, I had nothing more to advise.

So much for cussing. Next came the Youth. I had launched into a paraphrase of the speech delivered by Mark Henneman to the would-be mentors in the book, all about Youth needing adults in their lives and the wonders of being such an adult. Controversy #2. "Has anyone ever sat down with those kids," demanded Eyebrows, "and told them that, if they don't graduate high school, in a few years they'll be homeless?"

"Umm...actually, those kinds of discussions don't go over very well," I answered. "You know kids. It's why the smoking ads don't work--they never think it has anything to do with them." Heck, those kinds of discussions don't work on me. I know very well that never exercising and eating loads of sugar will one day turn me into a diabetic blob who suffers a massive heart attack when she tries to struggle up from her La-Z-Boy, but I think, in that case, I'd better enjoy all the lumping around and dessert I can get in the meantime.

Anyhow, nothing like a little blood-pumping excitement at book clubs. Eyebrows even said, "We'll see you again when you write your next book," and presumably she meant it invitingly, rather than so-I-can-rake-you-over-the-cultural-coals-again. We'll see--next book pimping stop is the Senior Adult Fellowship, which includes lunch and men!

Shut the Front Door

I know--I'm posting two days in a row. This is called procrastinating, because I'm supposed to be paying my bills on line and drumming up Bible study questions for next week. Before I get to that, I thought I'd blog on cussing.

Yesterday I was typing away on my as-yet-untitled sequel to MOURNING BECOMES CASSANDRA, which in itself was a procrastination tactic because I'm completely hung up on my YA novel and going nowhere fast. Anyhow, there is Joanie under my nimble fingers, and out of her mouth pops a cuss word. Now, as my readers know, I mostly confined the cussing in MBC to the non-churchgoing characters, but here was Joanie saying what she said. For a few minutes I considered options: (1) no cussing--but she was really ticked!; (2) saying indirectly, "Joanie let fly a frustrated expletive"--in my humble opinion I just think that leads the reader to substitute his favorite cuss word, in which case the synapse in his head fires no matter what; (3) just using the dinged word--I went with this; or (4) using what I did in (3), a euphemism.

Euphemisms happen to be my cussing style of choice with kids around. Euphemisms and my handy, but occasionally malfunctioning, personal mute button. (Aside: my oldest has gotten adept enough at reading my lips when I'm muted that I had a squirmy moment when we were watching the baseball playoffs, and one of the players had a lip-reading moment after striking out.) After saying "darn" in a sermon one week, my husband received an email reminding him that the euphemism is as bad as the cuss word in God's eyes--thank you, you sainted soul. If you happen to be reading this blog, please skip this post. Oh, and all my other posts. Oh, and probably my book, too.

In order for a euphemism to be effective as a substitute cuss word in times of frustration, it has to have a goodly number of syllables and feature satisfying consonants. Some of my personal go-to euphemisms include:

Admiral Chester T. Nimitz! (I found out his middle initial was actually "W," which prompted another euphemism.)

Newt Gingrich! (G's are particularly satisfying.)

Kaiser Wilhelm! (With the "W" pronounced as a "V," in true German fashion.)

And a new favorite, courtesy of Leslie M., to be said in tones of incredulity: Shut the front door!

Sample conversation:
Husband: Honey, I got a 200% raise today.

Wife: Shut the front door!

Any favorite euphemisms you want to share?