In Ned's Locker Room story, he mentions learning new bad words in his middle school locker room, I was in the eighth grade before ever hearing the f--- word. Or, more likely, I heard it but it meant nothing to me so I ignored it.
At any rate, the word sounded nasty when I became aware of boys using it, but it took days or maybe weeks for me to figure out exactly what it meant. Then it moved into my brain and I was constantly thinking about the literal meaning (a husband f---s his wife) versus the symbolic way my peers used it (f--- a class, f--- homework, f--- gym workouts). And the crazy thing was that I didn't want that word in my mind all the time. It made me feel like one of the troublemakers instead of a basically nice guy.
A few weeks after I learned that word we were studying lenses in science, like the lens in a camera or projector or magnifying glass. The teacher projected a real fuzzy picture on the screen and asked why it looked so bad. Various people said various things. I knew I had the answer, but instead of saying it to the teacher I turned to a kid next to me and said, "He needs to adjust the fuckus." The other's guy's eyes went wide and he stared at me.
"I mean FOCUS! FOCUS!. You know, FOCUS!"
In my mind I was dying! How did THAT come out of my mouth??? To think how near I came to yelling "fuckus" in science class completely creeped me out. I became so scared of accidentally saying the f--- word that I forced myself to slow down and examine every sentence before I said anything.
Still today when I see binoculars or a magnifying glass I am transported back to eighth grade science and a near-disaster that would have got me suspended from school and seriously disciplined at home.
Martin
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I might have been in 4th or 5th grade, with a friend in the back seat of our car with my mom and dad riding in front. We were just having random fun, saw a huge truck, and somehow decided to see how many words we could think of that rhymed with truck. After several back and forth, I loudly stated a word that I did not know what an actual word at the time but it did rhyme with "truck". I think you know what blurted out of my mouth. I mom's head spun around so fast! "What did you just say?????" I had no idea it was bad, I didn't even know it was a word. but I innocently looked right at my mom and said...."F*ck?". Even though I still did not know what the big issue was, it became very clear to me very fast that that word (if it was a word) was NEVER to come out of my mouth ever again!
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This reminds me of something that happened to my father when he was in elementary school - in the 1920s. The teacher called on him to name the longest river in Africa. He had no clue, and froze. Another kid whispered to him, "Aishitta, Aishitta" and my father blurted out "Aishitta River!" That got him a whack on the hand from the teacher's ruler, but I think that his real punishment was that he was still embarassed about it eighty years on.
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