Hey Kids Can We Cuss A little More

Kids cuss so much these days. They cussed in my day. I cussed like a mother-effer.

          But one thing we didn’t do was cuss out an adult. And no one cussed out teachers.

          If “fuck” was every other word out of our mouths, it was said out of earshot of any grownups. Kids nowadays don’t give a shit who hears them. Now if you don’t like all the cursing I’m doing. Good. That means there’s still hope for you.

          To me cursing is like being chained to a post in the summer listening to heavy metal for eight straight hours. Followed by eight nonstop hours of rap music. You can’t get away from it.

King Of Cuss

My name is Bill Shelf. I work in a middle school. The name of the school is Todos Los Santos. That’s Spanish for All The Saints. There are no saints here including me. I’m a campus security monitor. That’s kind of like being a bouncer for sixth, seventh and eighth graders.

          My ears take a beating every day, even if I don’t. I want to thank Mr. Al for giving me the chance to share my thoughts with you.

          It’s gotten so bad lately that I’m petitioning the United States Congress to remove the letter “F” from the alphabet. If we get rid of the “F” word, my ears may survive another school year.

          Hang on a sec. Here comes a bunch of kids down the corridor.

          “Hey guys would you go to class please.”

          “Eat shit,” a girl says to me. “Go fuck yourself old man.”

          And while Congress is busy with the “F” letter, I think I’ll expand my petition to get rid of that delightful letter. The letter “S.” Why do I suddenly feel like I'm a character on Sesame Street. Guess it's all this talk about letters.

But we all know it takes an act of Congress to get Congress to get anything done these days. Actually, strike that. It takes an act of God to get Congress to do anything.

          Wait there’s another kid wandering the hall. I’m going to stop him.

          “Can you do me a favor.”

          “What dat.”

          “Go to class. Come on man.”

          “Mister you a bitch.”

          I guess “B” is another letter I should ask Congress to deep six.

          “Hey and mister. You a dick too.”

          You just haven’t experienced life, until you’ve been cursed out by a 12- year-old like Lamont. Guess I’m going to add the letter “D” to my congressional request. That way the angels at Los Santos couldn’t call me a dick.

          While letter removal may cut back on cursing, it won’t end it. They’ll find new ways to insult us.

These Kids Look Bored

    The question is --- why does this generation swear so much. Is it the lack of parental involvement, violent video games, too much rap music and social media. Is it their resentment of authority. All these things. None of these things.

          We as a society, are always arguing. Always fighting. Always using foul language. Me, my wife, everybody. Using foul language when we cut each other off in traffic, flipping one another off. We’re not engaged in an exchange of ideas. We’re engaged in an exchange of insults.

The Spanish-speaking kids like to call each other pendejo. That’s vulgar slang for calling someone stupid.

          There goes Jose. Hold on. I’m going to try to get Jose to class. He’s cut class 10 times this week.

          “Jose come on. You know where you’re supposed to be.”

          “Cabron I’m not going.”

          Cabron is Spanish for asshole.

          Okay Jose, I’m taking you to the dean’s office.

          “Pinche Cabron.”

          “Why thank you Jose. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Now get your butt to the dean’s office.”

          “I’m not going.”

          Jose’s taking off running. I’m not chasing the kid. He’s too fast. I’ll just write him up later. Pinche cabron is how you say fucking asshole in Spanish. Phonetically that would be Peeen-chay kah-broan.

Guess I should have them remove the letters “P” and “C,” while I’m at it. But if we keep removing letters from the alphabet, soon we won’t be able to speak to one another.

          We’ll just be grunting to communicate. It’ll be like the stone age. With my luck I’ll meet the reincarnation of Raquel Welch at a party and the only thing I’ll be able to do is grunt at her. I won’t be able to slay her with my smooth repartee.

Instead. I’ll be communicating like a caveman on the set of “One Million Years BC.” There will be Raquel Welch half naked like she was in the movie and I won’t be able to get the words out. Miss the chance to invite her out for a gin and tonic.

          So, who was the asshole who came up with the idea of eliminating certain letters from the alphabet. Oh yeah. Right. I was the asshole. Guilty as charged. Absolutely a bad idea.

          Like I said when I was a kid, me and my buddies cussed a lot with each other when we talked. We were trying to impress each other with how tough we were by using foul language. Cussing was the way to do it.

Kids nowadays cuss like they have Montezuma’s Revenge of the mouth on steroids to the third power after guzzling a can of Monster Energy drink.

          Maybe to these kids, the constant cussing is like sprinkling Tajin on that mango you’re eating to make it even tastier than it already is. But to me incessant cussing is like using too much of Pepper Palace’s Death Salsa on your tacos. It burns the crap out of your mouth.

          After a while you keep putting more and more death salsa on your tacos until you lose all sense of good taste. You don’t feel like you’re talking unless you sprinkle every sentence with a couple of juicy “F” bombs.

          The most gifted geniuses of cursing in my opinion were the rap group N.W.A. They cussed in interesting and original ways and context. I am not going to say what the “N” stands for in N.W.A. It’s not that I’m a noble person. I just feel wrong using that word. And that’s not to say I’ve never used it in anger. I have.

Now this next examination of the language of today’s youth, doesn’t fall under the category of cursing. But it’s not what one would refer to as polite conversation.

Sometimes, I hear the term “nalgas” used by the students on our campus who are of Mexican heritage. Which on this campus means more than 70 percent of the students.

To say that nalgas is the Spanish word for buttocks, just does not do it justice. Nalgas is a colloquial expression if there ever was one. It refers to the fleshy halves of a woman’s buttocks, the ass cheeks. And if that isn’t the cheekiest thing you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what to tell you other than this. Jennifer Lopez…nice nalgas.

Oh shit. Jose has come back.

“Hey mister I saw you checking out the nalgas on princesita over there.”

          “Jose, I don’t even know what nalgas are. How can I be looking at something when I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

          “Oh, you may not know the word mister. But you know you were looking.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

          “Yes, you were.”

          “No. I’m not.’

          “You’re a liar.”

          “Yeah, you’re right. I’m a liar.”

          “See you admit it. I’m going to tell on you mister.”

          This is a losing battle. The name of this game is: LET’S SEE HOW UNCOMFORTABLE WE CAN MAKE MISTER. In an effort to raise my mind out of the gutter, I walk away from Jose. And they say Spanish is a loving tongue. Not around here. It sure isn’t.

Cussing becomes a blitzkrieg on the brain when heard hundreds of times a day, day in day out. All of which explains why when I go home for the day, I drive with my windows up listening to 89.7 FM, the classical music station.

          I’m driving now. The sweet strings of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony are washing the day’s vulgarity from my mind. In the old days, when someone had a dirty mouth, you’d say they cussed like a sailor. I had a good friend who was in the Navy.  Believe me sailors don’t cuss like these kids. Do you get what I’m effing saying.