Oh my G, you’re an F!
Unlike the Facts of Life conversations, which tend to be initiated by my six-year-old, the Bad Words talk is one that I will bring up myself. Part of this comes from morbid maternal curiosity. The rest is to make sure more Newspeak isn’t occurring (the school has banned “stupid” and “freak,” and I don’t agree with cutting out ordinary words over poor usage.)
Last time we had this conversation, we learned Elizabeth’s S-bomb. Today, as we sat on the sofa, she informed me she had two new ones.
“Lay them on me,” I told her.
She shook her head, as expected.
“Okay, so what do they start with?”
“With one you say “oh my” first.” She nodded knowingly. “It’s like ‘Oh my word’ or ‘Oh my gosh,’ but this one is bad.”
Well, that wasn’t too hard to guess. I decided to challenge her. “What if you’re praying? Can you say, ‘Oh my God’ then?”
She considered this for a moment. “I guess that would be okay.”
“So we’ve established that in some cases, it is all right to say, ‘Oh my God.’”
She fingered her hot pink dress nervously. “Yeah, okay.”
“So is it really a bad word, if we sometimes can use it?”
“You mean like stupid?”
“Right. You can say ‘This stupid pen won’t write,’ and that’s okay.”
“So you can say ‘Oh my God’ sometimes too?”
“Yes.” Hopefully she was catching on. “So it’s not really a bad word.”
“Okay.” She pushed her blond hair out of her face. “I don’t think you can EVER say the other one.”
“What’s it start with?”
“First you say, ‘You’re a–‘” She stopped.
“And what does the next word start with?”
“F.”
“Freak?’
“No.”
“Fool?”
“No.”
I was quite sure we weren’t going for the big kahuna, but I thought I’d check. “You don’t say ‘mother’ with it?”
“No!”
“I give up. Just tell me the word.”
Her eyes got very big. “No way.”
“I promise you won’t be in trouble.”
She shook her head.
“What if you’re in trouble if you DON’T tell me?”
She smiled. She knew I was bluffing. “You said you know all the bad words. Figure it out.” And she hopped off the sofa. Our conversation was done.
I’m still in that golden mother stage where my kids think I know everything, and they will mostly do what I tell them, believe what I believe. I’ve got a couple good years yet.
But if you have any idea what “You’re an F–” stands for, please clue me in. I promise you won’t be in trouble.
(I don’t allow comments on this blog due to Internet trolls, but if you are on Facebook, friend me there and read what everyone is guessing the word could be.)
UPDATE: We had some great guesses on Facebook, and Irma was the closest with “fatty.” At dinner the other night, it took 20 minutes of questioning (involving her sister) before we got the answer: fat girl.
