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Being cursed with a proper young lady
by Sarah Littman
published January 11, 2005
Last Tuesday I realized that it was only the fourth day of 2005, yet I'd already
been to one funeral and made two condolence visits. In a darker moment, I'd have
thought a year off to such a solemn, sad start (and that's without even taking
into account the unfathomable loss of life in Asia) was not destined to be a
good one.
But after years of being a "glass-half-empty" kind of gal, I've been making it
my business to turn the glass upside down and look at it as half full -- at
least before whatever was in it spilled all over the one dry-clean-only garment
I possess (and that was only because I didn't look at the label before I bought
it). Instead of thinking, "Oy vay! This year is shaping up to be a total
downer!" I've made a conscious effort to look at the bright side: "Well, it can
only get better from here, right?"
As a Member of the Tribe, I celebrate two New Years, and therefore have the
opportunity to make-and break twice the number of resolutions. I save the
serious ones, those intended to remedy my (many) character flaws, for Rosh
Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, as it tends to be a more solemn, spiritual and
reflective affair than its champagne-swilling secular counterpart. But there's
something about hanging up a new calendar in the kitchen that inspires further
resolution-making. My daughter was the first to suggest what it should be.
"I think you should promise not to say any more bad words," she pronounced.
I've often wondered how a free spirit like yours truly ended up raising a
live-in Moral Majority. It's got to be some kind of big cosmic joke. Here's an
example: Back in December I made a CD of funny holiday songs. Now this is an
area where you Christians have it made, with such classics as "Grandma Got Run
Over by a Reindeer," "Rudolph got a DUI" and my personal favorite, "Fruitcake
Makes Me Puke," whereas we'd been limited to the various versions of Adam
Sandler's "Chanukah Song," until the recent discovery of such oeuvres as "Jesus
was a Dreidel Spinner" (Jill Sobule) and "Reuben the Hook-Nosed Reindeer" (Sean
Altman and Rob Tannenbaum).
So there I was, driving along, singing Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song 2," with my
usual enthusiasm and, characteristically, off key. When I got to the: "Lenny
Kravitz is half Jewish, Courtney Love is half, too; put them both together, what
a funky bad-assed Jew!" part, I heard a scandalized gasp from the row behind.
"Mummy!" admonished my back seat Puritan. "You said a bad word!"
"When?" I asked, quite sure that nary an F, S or any other four-letter word of
my acquaintance (other than "what" or "when", of course) had recently slipped my
lips.
"You know Š bad Š uhŠ" she trailed off, unwilling to allow the offending word to
sully her pure, 8-year-old lips.
"What, you mean bad-assed?" I inquired.
Gasp! Shock! Horror!
"You said it again!" cried the Voice of My Moral Conscience.
I'll admit to being somewhat bemused by the depth of her disquiet. I mean, I
know the A-word in question isn't the most polite and ladylike of expressions,
but I never really thought of it in the same category of bad-word-dom as some
other expletives I could mention if this weren't a family newspaper. It's not
like I'm constantly exposing my kids to bad words -- they're not allowed to see
R rated movies or play M rated video games as do many of their similarly aged
peers, and I never play my favorite, bad-word-laden, Liz Phair CD when they're
in the car.
I spent the rest of the holiday season attempting to remember to omit the
offending lyric whenever I sang along, knowing full well my Back Seat Bad Word
Detector would react noisily if I forgot, something that I did, unfortunately,
on more than one occasion.
So when Amie asked me to swear not to use bad words (wait -- wasn't the point
not to swear?), I couldn't do it. I try not to make promises I can't keep, and I
knew one of those words would slip out sooner or later.
"Try not to say them," she said.
We made a deal. My daughter, the chronic slob, will try to keep her room tidy
and I, the chronic bad-word utterer, will try to keep it clean. We'll have to
see how long this #@%!* resolution lasts.
Sarah Littman, who lives in Greenwich, is author of
"Confessions of a Closet Catholic," to be published in February by Dutton
Children's Books
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