Monday, April 8, 2013

Tales of an F-Bomber



I'm a veteran pilot of sorts. I know my way around the skies when it comes to certain things. I’m not bragging, you understand. I am just saying that I have some skills, and not a small amount of experience. No, not small at all.

But the day comes – or it doesn’t – when you decide to take off your goggles and your leather aviator gear, and you just choose to live life from a different place. To be honest, I don’t even know if I can do it. Okay, let me clarify this. I plan to do it, except for extreme circumstances when the situation requires that I return to the skies and once again do my bit for all humanity. For now, the F-Bomber will lay down her wings and live a more benevolent life on the ground.

Can it really be done? Who can say? I heard a story once about a guy in southern Oklahoma – an Okie from the red dirt region. Supposedly, he tried to give up F-bombing. Soon after, when presented with an especially exasperating situation and unable to drop any F-bombs, he was at such a loss at how better to express himself, he burst an artery in his right temple and his head exploded. 
"Frack you!" 

I’m hoping that my advantage will be a healthy vocabulary that will serve me in my hour of need as I walk through the valley of the shadow of no swearing.  Why even try to give it up at this late hour? Oh, because I do it a lot. It is a word that I especially love and embrace and find so fitting to so many life situations. But I’m better than this. I know I am.   F-Bombing has a particularly nasty connotation, and conjures up images of a woman who chews tobacco, spits in the dirt, doesn't shower much, and probably plays a harmonica. I'm  in search of a calm exterior and as such, I probably need to let that word go. Besides, we all know I don't play the harmonica.

Still, it makes my head hurt to think about giving up F-bombing.  Until I get the hang of it, you may hear me substituting all kinds of crazy words in place of that all-encompassing, adjective/expletive/verb/noun. (See what I mean? Versatile!) I may be heard to holler things like, “What the fork?” and “I don’t give a fadoodle!” and “he’s a mothermother!” until I can really get this thing figured out. In the meantime, I still plan to use “bugger” once in an a while.
Noble F-Bombers from a bygone era.