Confession #32

Swearing. It's one of those things. You don't want to do it...but sometimes...

1. When I was little we lived on Knowles Avenue. The front door would stick. My dad was getting read to take me to the dentist (I think), and I was about 5 years old. I was trying to open the front door. It stuck and before I could stop it I said "Would someone open this (Bleep) door!?" Everyone looked at me. I started crying. I knew it was NOT something for a kid to say. Everyone laughed. I cried more. It was not a good day!

2. Stacy, Nicole and I used to think we were SOOOOOO cool! We knew it was wrong to swear (apparently that was imbedded in us). We used to take walks up the sidewalk and each of us would say a half of a swear word. Someone else would say the other half and we would just GIGGLE, thinking we were being SOOO slick!

3. Since it was imbedded in me that swearing was NOT for kids...I ran into a problem when I started reading Stephen King's books. He swears in his books ALOT. But to me, what you are reading you are saying in your mind. So to read the swear words was just as bad as saying them. Keep in mind I started reading Stephen King around 13 years old! So I came up with this awesome system that worked for me. Every word I read that was bad was converted to something else, until it became second nature for me to see the "bad" word and automatically "read" my substitute word. It worked too. Still does. I may read my Bible and it says "hell" and I think "heck" then have to remind myself it's a different context! Of course, now I see it as the substitute words are just as bad, because it's really the intent of those words that's not good. I try really hard not to use them at all!