The first part of this story is about “the cussing”. Trust me, it’s relevant. “The cussing” is what was coming out of Elliott’s mouth around the dinner table during his first few weeks of first grade. He was using some words that we don’t throw around casually (we save them for appropriate cussing situations) and we were curious as to where he had even heard them. Upon inquiry, he disclosed that he had learned “the cussing” from a new friend at school. We explained that the words were inappropriate and unseemly and I made a mental note that perhaps this was not a friend we would be having play dates with.
As fate would have it, that same new friend began sending messages home with Elliott asking for my phone number and requesting a playdate. I am a good Mama and I don’t send my kids off to just anyone’s house who asks them to come. We ask around about the family, meet the parents, equip our kids with a “safe phrase” they can call home and say that will get them picked up pronto-tonto. After all of that, if everybody feels good about it, we go ahead with a play date. I wasn’t gonna send Elliott off to a whole houseful of cussers before doing my due diligence. Parent teacher interviews were coming up, so after discovering that I had indeed not “taught Elliott to read” during his “home schooled” kindergarten year, I asked the teacher about “the cusser’s” family. She was so surprised to hear it. She assured me that he came from an upstanding, fabulous family and that his parents would be mortified to know that he was doing “the cussing”. She was confident that this would be a perfectly safe home for a play date and encouraged me to tell the parents about the weird aberration in their son’s behavior. I made a plan to try to work up enough guts to bring this subject up with “the cusser’s” parents, people I didn’t even know.
A couple of days later, I was driving home from a friend’s house when my car started overheating. I got scared and dialed Barry up on my cell phone to ask him what to do. He told me that if I gunned the truck for a few seconds, it would open up our sticking thermostat and kick it out of overheating. So I did. In a school zone. While kids were being let out of school. On a day when a kid had been hit by a car in our town. While talking on my cell phone. The sirens started up in conjunction with me gunning it. I was pulled over immediately. The cop to nab me was in a foul mood. Partly, I presume, due to the terrible mishap of a child being hit by a car in our town that day and partly, I presume, because an idiot was drag racing in a school zone at 3:30 while chatting it up on her cell phone. He was ornery. I handed over my license and expired registration (expired because #gypsythugmoms aren’t great at keeping track of that sort of thing) and I knew I was going down. He explained to me, in hostile terms, that he could impound my car right then and there and that he had half a mind too. I tried to just keep quiet and nod. He lectured me at length and then headed back to his car to decide my fate. Just as he turned disgustedly away from me, I caught sight of his name badge. Wait. That was the same last name as “the cusser”! That wasn’t a common last name. Chances are, he was “the cusser’s” Dad. Oh man, oh man, oh man. How could I leverage this situation to my advantage? Would it be weird for me to bring it up at this juncture? For Pete’s sake, I was just an innocent mom with an overheating car and an expired registration and his kid was a first class cusser! I was still mulling over my approach when he returned and rapped on my window.
As I rolled it down, he delivered my sentence. He made sure I knew I was lucky that he was not going to impound my car. He gave me the highest fines possible for my cumulative crimes: speeding, speeding in a school zone, speeding in a school zone while kids were being released from school, talking on my cell phone and an expired registration. My grand total came to just under $700. He looked like he wished he could cuff me to my steering wheel and leave me in a field to rot. And somewhere between the dollar signs floating through my head and my desire for him to quit shaming me, I decided that now was the time to talk about “the cussing”. When he came up for breath and I reached for the ticket of death, I said this:
“Do you have a son named _ _ _?” He seemed startled at the change of subject from my crimes to his child and he said gruffly,
“Yes. Why?”
“Well then,” I said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to give YOU a ticket!” Now he was disoriented.
“What?” His angry eyes were fully out. (Who even was I? I could get cuffed and thrown in the slammer for this insolence. I was a person with nothing left to lose and a chip on her shoulder that’s who.)
“Your son has been teaching my son a whoooooooole buncha bad words. Would you like to hear them?”
“What?!… Uhhhh…yes?” I had him on the ropes. I then launched into a long string of expletives, in the name of quoting “the cussing”. I assure you, I meant every one of them. This, my lovely readers, is what I would refer to as an “appropriate cussing situation”. It was a moment of sheer bliss for me. He stuttered out that he did not condone that kind of language and that he would deal with that situation when he got home. Uh-oh. I suddenly felt bad for “the cusser” that I had just thrown under the bus in the name of revenge. I said some quick prayers for him and pulled out to drive home.
Bliss is not the same feeling I felt when I called Barry to tell him what had happened. And bliss is a different feeling than the feeling Barry felt when he heard my sordid tale. He chastised me for being snarky with a cop and asked me if I had any ideas about how we would pay for that. But every time I tell this story, I see him smiling.
The next day was the Halloween parade of costumes at Elliott’s school. I assumed that since “the cusser’s” parents were good parents like me, that they would be there. And they were. I suddenly wished I had worn a costume myself. We had a very awkward introduction and I quickly learned that their son had picked these words up from a kid on the bus. They assured me that Elliott would not hear that kind of language again and we stiffly laughed about the ticket. Too soon.
The coolest part of this story is that this little friend became one of Elliott’s bosom buddies and his family is indeed an upstanding, fabulous family. Somehow they consented to let their son come over to a house where the mom racks up epic speeding tickets. We had lots of play dates and sleepover exchanges and neither “the cussing” nor “the speeding” was ever an issue again. In fact, if I ever saw cop/dad in the grocery store, I made it a habit to speed by with my cart, yelling at him to try and catch me.
For those of you who can’t quite tell when an “appropriate cussing situation” is, I would like to offer this wisdom from the great Kenny Rogers as a general guideline:
You gotta know when to hold em
Know when to fold em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
Thank you once again for making me chuckle 🙂
I never miss a blog post. I knew you were hilarious, but this is so much more. You also affirm that I am not the only person living an endless sea of misadventures. When you mentioned expired registration, I said, YES! I am not the only one who does things like this and more. My straight-laced husband does not understand. More power to you and all the gypsy thug Moms and wives out there.
Take heart! There are SO many gypsy thugs out there! ❤