The Prime
Time anchor read from the tele-prompter.
“Earlier today, a woman in a shopping center dropped the
“F-bomb” in the midst of fellow shoppers. An off-duty fire
inspector was nearby, and asked her to refrain from doing it
again, as there were children nearby. Enraged at the inspector,
the woman began letting more “F-bombs” fly until finally, the
officer arrested her and escorted her from the building.”
I turned from my computer in amazement.
“You’ve GOT to be kidding me! You mean you can get arrested for
farting in public, now?”
Josie looked at me incredulously, and then collapsed onto the
pillows, giggling hysterically.
“Mum,” she gasped, “The “F-bomb” means she said the “F-word!””
Well, THAT wasn’t what I’d
been picturing, let me tell you! The mental image I’d had was
one of a young mother who was out for an afternoon of shopping
which had been preceded by a lunch at a nice little restaurant.
A restaurant where she’d probably consumed a cup of chili with
beans followed by a broccoli quiche. At the shopping center,
well, nature took its course like nature so often does--despite
our wishes to the contrary--and the woman broke wind.
Admit it, it’s happened to the best of us. Muscles that control
such things simply have a mind of their own at times, right?
Most of us quickly walk from the spot of detonation, hoping that
someone else will get the blame. If you’re really quick-witted,
you might even scowl contemptuously at another passer-by or give
them a reproachful glance, thereby fully depositing any guilt
squarely upon another’s shoulders.
But not the star of my misunderstood news item! No, SHE stayed
in place and bravely suffered the fallout from her bomb. And
then, when this stranger, this FIRE INSPECTOR, called her to the
carpet on it, did she blush in embarrassment and apologize, as
most of us would do? No way! I’d been convinced that this
woman possessed remarkable, incredible powers! I’d heard of
being “mad enough to chew nails” and “mad enough to spit” but
this woman, I thought, could flatulate on command! After all,
she was “letting F-bombs fly!” That was something to almost—but
not quite—be envious of.
And the fire inspector’s involvement? Well, in my scenario, he
was concerning himself with the public welfare… a build-up of
methane gas can be combustible and thereby dangerous to those
humble citizens who pay his salary. Perhaps a woman who
haphazardly threw around MY kind of F-bombs SHOULD be removed
from public areas! But not arrested, no. I thought that was
taking things a bit too far. Give her some Bean-o or Gas-X, but
don’t give her a criminal record for loosing her pucker string
in a crowd.
My brief vision of “The F-bomb That Could Have Leveled a
Shopping Center” went up in a puff of smoke. (Sweet,
nice-smelling smoke, like you’d get from incense or something…)
It was clear to me that I wasn’t “up” on the latest slang.
It could be argued that someone saying the “F-word” in public
SHOULD be reprimanded. I acknowledge that there is a
distressful increase in distasteful--and sometimes downright
foul--language that is casually uttered these days in public, in
print, and on TV. But arrested for it? I’m not sure. I guess
without witnessing the whole scenario, I can’t give a firm
opinion on it--though getting thrown in jail for it doesn’t
seem very American to me. And arrested by a fire marshal?
I don’t get that. An off duty fire marshal? Uh, uh. It
seems to me like he wanted some attention or notoriety from the
incident because chances are it wouldn’t have escalated into a
“letting F-bombs fly” scene if he’d chosen to handle the
situation in a manner that wasn’t so antagonistic. The bottom
line is, I don’t know.
What I DO know is that my mother never would have dropped an
F-bomb—neither my kind nor Josie’s, not in public nor in the
privacy of her own home! She was and is a lady, and in the
house where I grew up, to say “break wind” in the vernacular was
to utter a four-letter word. You didn’t say it. You didn’t
drop it. And you didn’t let it fly. And you NEVER
misunderstood what she was talking about, the way I
misunderstood the CNN reporter.
I only hope that I can be half as good an example to my daughter
as Mum was to me. But I despair. Josie’s already perfected the
art of blaming the dog.
