Bad Words

By SM Shrake on Dec 17, 2009 in SM Shrake | View Comments

Scott ShrakeI am fed up to the swordhilt with getting in trouble for using words.

When I was a youngster, I would routinely encounter a word whose sound or appearance I liked, then during the course of a day I’d abide with itching anticipation for a chance to use it without ever checking what it meant. It was exhilarating to decide what words meant privately, without benefit of a dictionary. I checked them in the Shrake-tionary up here [points at temple] and that was satisfunctary.

Until one day! In about 1981, to be exact. Mrs. D. was driving me and three other prepubescent boys home from some after-school activity, possibly Forensics, possibly Webelos.

Mrs. D.: A waking daymare of suburbia, wound up so tight it squeaked when she moved her head, her maskface producing the mirthless “backward laugh” common to all the moms in the neighborhood, a staccato series of high-pitched wheezing inhalations.

I know all comparisons are inviduous, but in the interest of space, just picture Mary Tyler Moore’s character in that year’s hit movie Ordinary People (based on a novel written by Judith Guest, a native of my hometown) but with a style more like Velma’s from Scooby Doo.

I was in the back seat. In the front seat next to Mrs. D. was her daughter, A., who was slightly younger than us boys. Who knows why she was there. She was the pain-in-the-ass-in-waiting daughter her mother deserved.

So we turned onto Windemere Street, and were approaching Brett S.’s house, which was a mid-century (20th, that is) ranch with fanciful wooden slats on the façade. The slats were painted multiple bright colors for some reason. Brett’s dad was a coach, a tough guy who cried when he hugged his sons after a big game, whether they played in the game or not.

Salt of the subdivision types.

So as we’re rounding Windemere, and approaching the S.s’ house, Mrs. D.’s son goes, “Hey, Brett, what’s with the rainbow-colored boards on your house? It’s psychedelic!” Several passengers laughed.

The word “psychedelic” I didn’t know, but it sounded exotic, so... my perverted brand of Scorpio competitiveness kicked in and I searched my brainhouse for that word I was waiting for just the occasion to use.

Thinking fast, I popped out a new word I had seen in a People magazine review of the new Barbra Streisand/Gene Hackman movie All Night Long, in which she played (yet again) basically a prostitute. It was a word they used to describe her character.

“Yeah,” I added loudly and proudly. “Are you guys NYMPHOMANIACS or something?” There was no reaction for a second or two.

______

Mrs. D. did keep driving the car, but slowed it down. “What did you just say, young man?” (She really used those exact words. This was 20 years ago. People still talked like that.) “I asked if the S.s were nymphomaniacs. [Your son] asked if they were psychedelic, so...” Her head jerked back violently when I used the word again. Like the second bullet in Dallas. Things would never be the same on this car ride.

“Do you know what that word means?” she huffed, with real adult-to-adult anger, not proportionate for speaking to a 10-year-old child. Her daughter was tugging on her mother’s sleeve and bugging her to tell her what it meant. “LOOK IT UP IN THE DICTIONARY,” her mother snarled.

“I guess I assumed it was based on nymph, like forest nymph, like, they are floating around, painting their house different colors...” I offered, making a waving movement with my arms and picturing the beautiful Barbra Streisand in the movie All Night Long.

“Yeah. That’s not what it means.”

“Well, then I guess I don’t know what it means,” I admitted quietly. She lectured me in the sternmost way, “You shouldn’t go around using words when you don’t know what they mean.” Her underage daughter was still asking insistently what this funny word meant. I couldn't wait to go look it up myself! I could've sworn it had something to do with fairies or nymphs.

“Sorry,” I whispered in an absent little voice, stiffened with dread at having gotten in trouble yet again -- staring out the car window as the candy-colored slats of Brett’s house got closer and closer.

Mostly I felt sorry for myself, though. This was an outrage, the way this adult was bullying me, heavying up on me and embarrassing me in front of my friends just because she knew what psychedelic and nymphomaniac meant.

That station-wagon ride of mortification taught me: You are not one to go searching for words to use, you’ll only misappropriate them. It will be safer to make up your own words now. So that’s what I’m going to do.

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

  • Paula

    You see, Mrs. D probably was a closet nympho, or was a swinger with Coach and Mrs. S. You hit too close to home (or is that suburbia)?

  • Paula

    You see, Mrs. D probably was a closet nympho, or was a swinger with Coach and Mrs. S. You hit too close to home (or is that suburbia)?

  • http://www.spot43.com/ sarah

    I appreciate your “walking daymare” – and your ordinary people mention. What a horror that Mary Tyler Moore was!

  • http://www.spot43.com sarah

    I appreciate your “walking daymare” – and your ordinary people mention. What a horror that Mary Tyler Moore was!

  • hellscowgirl

    Shame on you Mrs. D!! That was poorly handled. She’s a f**ktard (not my made-up word but it’s appropriate)

  • hellscowgirl

    Shame on you Mrs. D!! That was poorly handled. She’s a f**ktard (not my made-up word but it’s appropriate)

  • Paul

    I asked my 7th grade Social studies teacher what Masturbate meant in front of the whole class. I had read it in a “Sick Jokes” book. She actually answered my question tactful, carefully worded way.

  • Paul

    I asked my 7th grade Social studies teacher what Masturbate meant in front of the whole class. I had read it in a “Sick Jokes” book. She actually answered my question tactful, carefully worded way.

  • SS

    … while she demonstrated, for the class?

  • SS

    … while she demonstrated, for the class?

  • Nancy

    Reminds me of the time I copied the words for that Scorpions song that goes, “There’s no one like you/I can’t wait for the nights with you/I imagine the things we’d do/I just wanna be loved by you” from the back of some old fan magazine of my sister’s. I couldn’t have been more than 10 myself, and when my mother found it I had much talking to do to explain the fact that I thought he was talking about staying up all night watching movies or something when he said “I imagine the things we’d do,” and not anything else.

  • Nancy

    Reminds me of the time I copied the words for that Scorpions song that goes, “There’s no one like you/I can’t wait for the nights with you/I imagine the things we’d do/I just wanna be loved by you” from the back of some old fan magazine of my sister’s. I couldn’t have been more than 10 myself, and when my mother found it I had much talking to do to explain the fact that I thought he was talking about staying up all night watching movies or something when he said “I imagine the things we’d do,” and not anything else.

  • Hilton

    Pre-pubescent me didn’t really understand all that goes into making a baby. I thought Michael Jackson in Billie Jean was claiming that the “chair” was not his son. Kudos to you, Scott, for using keen deductive skills to figure out what nymphomaniacs actually are maniacal about. I prefer your conclusions. I like nymphs too.

  • Hilton

    Pre-pubescent me didn’t really understand all that goes into making a baby. I thought Michael Jackson in Billie Jean was claiming that the “chair” was not his son. Kudos to you, Scott, for using keen deductive skills to figure out what nymphomaniacs actually are maniacal about. I prefer your conclusions. I like nymphs too.

  • Hilton

    And I don’t exactly know why I just stated that Billie Jean thing. Oh, I think I was saying that she tried to take away your innocence, like the person who corrected me as to why MJ’s assertion that the chair is not his son is in fact peculiar, but that his statement that the child is not his son was not peculiar. Then again, we’re talking about MJ, so any consideration of his sexual being is peculiar. Any consideration of him is peculiar. Goodnight.

  • Hilton

    And I don’t exactly know why I just stated that Billie Jean thing. Oh, I think I was saying that she tried to take away your innocence, like the person who corrected me as to why MJ’s assertion that the chair is not his son is in fact peculiar, but that his statement that the child is not his son was not peculiar. Then again, we’re talking about MJ, so any consideration of his sexual being is peculiar. Any consideration of him is peculiar. Goodnight.

blog comments powered by Disqus