Episode 24 Grown Up Christians

My mother, a fourth grade teacher and Senior High Sunday School Teacher, upheld language rules. When I was in middle school, one of dad‘s younger brothers came to visit and cursed at the table. Mom joked about needing to wash out his mouth with soap. Uncle Dave, feeling himself, smiled and repeated the foul word three or four times. Mom laughed and seemingly let it go. I wondered if cursing was okay now? When Mom came around with dessert, she asked “David, would you like ice cream with your pie?” and when he turned and answered, Mom deftly slid a tiny bar of soap into his open mouth. I suppose this could have gone a number of ways, but uncle David spit out the soap laughing at being bested by my mother. Mom was fun, but not to be trifled with.  If we ever cursed, mom would look over her glasses and with a soul-level sigh and say,  “Paul Robert, I really thought you had a more extensive  vocabulary and did not need to reduce yourself to such guttural language!” My dad, even with 13 years in the army, abided by my mother's language rules. Once while putting a transmission in my truck Dad’s finger got smashed up.  Dad shouted “fiddly diddly ding dang day.”  There was no arguing for the therapeutic release of generalized non-human directed cussing. However, I did challenge one of Mom’s catch-phrase rules: “We don’t say that, that is ugly!” . As a high schooler, I was telling some tale when mom interjected, “Oh Paul that is ugly.” I countered, “It is funny.”  Mom said “that is not funny- it is ugly.” I parried “If it is not funny then why is dad laughing?”  Dad muffled a laugh and cut his eyes away to say that I was on my own. “What does that even mean, “that is ugly”?” Mom frowned and shook her head in disappointment and defeat. I had won, until one day twenty years later, when one of my children said something and out of nowhere I said, “That is ugly.”  Mom won the long game.