Exclamations

Gotta say, I was one of the ones who was giggling uncontrollably over por Sam the garbage man. It was one of those delayed reaction deals that had me sporfling at odd moments well after I'd read the comic and gone on to other things. I was afraid my co-workers would be wondering what was wrong with me.

Speaking of weird exclamations, my pet "swear word" for a while was "Mary Sue MacGuffin!" which I suppose is a pretty vile phrase if you're a writer. It does roll nicely off the tongue, though.

As a grandfather, I had to get back into the habit of censoring myself that I had lost when my children became adults, so one time when I had banged my thumb or some such and was about to cut loose, I remembered my grandson had been watching me intently as I worked on whatever it was that caused the injury. Those of you who have really smacked your thumb know that verbiage cannot be stopped, only modified. So I cried out in great rage "RAAAAAAT BOOGERS!" Apparently, "rat boogers" is the phrase that will reduce a six year old grandson to paroxysms of laughter until he has to run to the bathroom or wet himself. I suppose the look on my face as I said it while hopping up and down holding the injured digit also helped.

I don't know why I said that instead of "dang", "blast", or other replacement word for what I was wanting desperately to say, but it worked and I still use it today, even though my grandson hears worse language on the school playground than I would have used that time. It is a joke between us now.

Unless I'm in a really foul mood and only near people over the age of 15, I always use "FUDGE!" as my swear-word of choice. It's close enough to the word I want to be using that if the other starts to come out I can correct myself, and it's funny. One time I was riding and the horse, beast that it was, kept getting too close to the fence. The unpleasant result was that I hit my knee against the post at a respectable speed. I bit my lip and continued, but what do you know? The next time around, try though I might to stop him, he hit my knee again, harder. I screamed "FUDGE!" so loud I believe it echoed. I think some of the little kids giggled, because really. Who injures themselves badly and then yells at a delicious chocolatey dessert?

One of my uncles cracked me up with his substitute cuss word. I now use it as an exclamation of pleasant surprise. "Hoochiemama" pronounced HOO-chee-mama.

That also cause my grandson to double over in laughter.

One time my dad got buzzed by an electric cattle fence, back in the early 60's when they used REAL voltage, as he was helping his dad install it on grandpa's farm.

"YIECHAMEEWOWOW!"

I stole a phrase directly from Daffy Duck that I use when leaving; "Yoiks, and away!"

Instead of calling an idiotic driver what I desire to call them, I tone it down into "turd sniffer".

All of which amuse my grandson no end.

As I try not to swear (having 3 young impressionable children in the house ages 2, 4, and 6) my word of choice is FRICK in all its permutations.

I really had to tone it down even further recently tho after hearing my 4 year old son yell "I don't want to go to frikin bed, damnit" as he slammed his bedroom door!

Of course at our house the punishment for swearing is a few drops of tobasco sauce on the tongue (for the kids at least since I like tobasco and my wife doesn't swear), so he go a few drops for the damnit not the frikin. He hasn't said either lately (at least that my wife and I have heard).

I grew up in Minnesota, in which there is a town called Biwabik (pronounced "Buh-WAH-buk", at least by Twin Citians who don't know better). One day, my Dad stepped into the room with the remark, "I always wondered where they came up with the name 'Biwabik'. Then I realized - it's exactly the sound you make when you step into a hot bath: 'Biwabik!'"

When I read this I had no idea what this was supposed to mean. I thought that Gramps had a stroke and just shouting gibberish. I just stared at it for several minutes trying to understand it. Sweet puckery lemons made more logical sense than this.