Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Resonance of Cursing

The Resonance of Cursing

Sometimes I just can’t get something out of my mind…..It might be a catchy tune, some song lyrics…a line from a book or play or today….A line spoken by a character.

My wife and I are watching Deadwood and one of the Antagonists is a character named Swearington. He owns a saloon and Brothel and in a lawless community, and for all his warts he is the one who holds the social fabric of the mining camp together. Another character is a Chinaman who disposes of bodies in his pigsty and also is the local dope distributor…..This Chinaman can’t speak but a few words of English and communicates with Swearington by drawing pictures. Now one of Swearington’s favorite words is “Cocksucker!” and that is one of the few words the Chinaman understands..that and Swearington which he pronounces “Swington. Hold that thought….

Now when I am working on my stove and sometimes get a blast of smoke. When that happens I am prone to swearing and lately I have taken to miming the Chinaman…..saying, “SWINGTON! SWINGTON! COCKSUCKER!” Today when I let out this expletive the dogs came running up from the woods and stood wagging their tails…..for some reason they really like the resonance of that curse.

After getting the stove going I took them for a walk. My Black lab has relatively short legs and the snow is deep but she loves to chase squirrels. My Golden Doodle is huge with long legs and she is an apprentice squirrel chaser working under the tutelage of Chloe the lab. Anyway when they get after one there is no getting them back….they are gone and that’s OK because in the winter my farmstead does not see a lot of traffic….I mean in the summer it used to get 5 cars a day however that is now up to about 10. In the winter it is way below that. We don’t have any school aged children along our road and when the county did the plowing we might on a lucky week see the plow truck one time. I swear the place was like the Donner Pass….

Anyway the Township got mad at the lousey service we were getting from the county and hired an independent subcontractor…..He is the guy that sells me logs that I make into firewood….and he plows our road as soon as it snows….Who said it doesn’t pay to have friends…..Not anyone who ever lived in Chicago.

Anyway I was walking the girls when they took off on one of their typical two hour romps….where they come home covered in burrs after rolling in dead things and my wife goes ballistic and blames their undisciplined behavior on me. I got mad and started hollering…”Swington! Swington! Cocksucker! Cocksucker.” Those crazy dogs heard my profanity and came back to me on the run and walked dutifully by my side all the way home… Ain’t that the damndest thing you ever heard?