Swear By It!

In 1993, I was invited – ever so politely – to visit the HR Director’s office at my first TV station in Des Moines, Iowa.  Irma, the HR manager, was a pleasant sort … with a grandmotherly quality and a penchant for brightly colored blouses.  I respected the shit out of her.

In my first year at the station, I had managed to learn how to properly handle all of my job duties while winning friends and influencing people.   I thought for sure Irma was calling me in to her office to tell me how damn proud she was of me.

Nope – she called me in to her office to inform me that she didn’t appreciate my potty-mouth.  “Michael, when you swear – you could potentially offend someone,” she admonished.   “If you DON’T swear – you never run the risk of offending anyone.  Got it?”

I sheepishly said, “Wow, Irma – good point.  God, do I feel like a fucking douchebag.  It won’t happen again … you can guaran-damn-tee it!”  And, believe me, I was being 100% sincere.

I’m not sure how it happened – but I had become a longshoreman.  My swearing had become problematic … and I wasn’t even aware of it.  I tried everything to squelch my profanity.  My friends made me give them $1 every time I used a bad word.  (I ended up in jail for writing bad checks – which was totally fucked.)  I had my jaws wired shut – which only meant I could swear like a ventriloquist.

Nothing worked.  In fact, it was getting worse.  I thought, “For fuck’s sake – maybe I have Tourette’s Syndrome!”  (I didn’t.  Turns out I just liked to cuss … a lot.)

My parent’s didn’t swear growing up.  In fact, if my dad said, “Damn” … I’d usually say, “Oooh, bad word!  Bite your tongue!”  I’m not really sure when my love of the f-bomb came from.  And the s-bomb.  And any other word you can’t say on 1970’s network TV.

My HR director suggested throwing in words like “darn”, “shoot” and “crackers” in lieu of my usual lingo.  But saying things like, “Gosh, this darn tape isn’t working.  Shoot.  It’s driving me crackers!” was fucking un-fucking-satisfying.  Worse yet she told me that “Dear Fuckface” was an inappropriate way to start a thank you letter.

Fortunately, I rarely WRITE swear words – in blogs, e-mails or church bulletins.  Irma eventually gave up on trying to get me to watch my tongue.  I think she realized it was a lost cause – or that I was just an immature fart-knocker.  But – to this day – I’m sure-as-shit grateful that she took the time to tell me that I might have a slight problem with it.  We all need an Irma in our life.  She was the coolest motherfucker … ever.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 at 3:38 am and is filed under M2's World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.