A little old lady out for a Sunday drive.
I think I may have an unusual form of Tourette’s Syndrome. Those who suffer from Tourette’s are plagued with uncontrollable physical tics and “the spontaneous utterance of socially objectionable or taboo words or phrases.” In other words, they swear like troopers.
My attacks are infrequent and highly situational. Here are the triggers that might set me off:
- Inanimate objects that will not cooperate. i.e. The picture that won’t hang straight, or the coffee table that jumps out at my toes.
- Idiots who expose their ignorance on TV or talk radio. i.e. Ed Schultz
- Other drivers. These are by far the most frequent triggers. I can be driving down the road humming a cheery tune, at one with the universe, but if another driver cuts me off it’s an instant Swear-O-Rama.
I find a vile stream of invective spewing forth from my proper self without my knowledge or consent. In the worst cases (like if another driver pulls in front of me and then stops to turn left) the obscenities may be shouted with vigor.
I know better. I am a lady, born and bred. I make it a firm rule to avoid crude talk and behavior, and I would never swear in public. So why does this happen? Maybe it’s a built-in safety valve that allows me to let off steam before I explode.
While I can’t control the impulses, so far I have been able to manage the outbreaks. The attacks only occur when I’m by myself, or in the presence of my cat, Beeby. She is pretty blasé about it and I know she won’t tell.
I’m afraid that when I’m really old, all my inhibitions will be knocked down by senility and I’ll shock the socks off the aides down at the Shady Acres Retirement Home. “Did you hear that old bat in 201A? She’d make a longshoreman blush!”
I’m not proud of this little character flaw; so let’s just keep it between ourselves, shall we? After all, it’s nobody else’s @#!$%& business.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
I like your jerk-wad tag. Also, I like hearing that there’s someone else who can be in the midst of pleasant inner-car conversation and spontaneously spew out seemingly uncontrollable profanities. Last night I was having a lovely ride home with Dave and someone pulled out in front of me (I had a green light, they were doing a poor job of turning right no red) and right over top Dave’s calm, happy conversation, I started my own dialogue with the perpetrator. It wasn’t pretty.
LikeLike
It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. Was Dave shocked?
LikeLike
Embarrassingly enough, he’s used to it.
LikeLike
No, that’s a good thing when someone loves you warts and all.
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure the aides at Shady Acres have heard it all before so don’t worry about it. I’m more concerned about the other residents in their wheelchairs and walkers getting in your way!
LikeLike
As long as all the other residents follow the rules of the hallways, we should get along just fine.
LikeLike
I took a road trip last summer with a friend and learned a new curse word that she aims at other drivers. I have since adopted it, and it comes out of my (normally) clean mouth when a less-than-polite driver cuts me off or won’t let me in when I try to change lanes using a blinker – “Clown-f***er”!
LikeLike
That’s some quality obscenity, there. Very creative! I may adopt this.
LikeLike
I think I’ve bumped into you before, PegoLeg. Frickin’ frackin, watch where you are going next time.
LikeLike
Oh, if you bumped into me, you’d hear about it. Loud and clear!
LikeLike
It’s very noble of you Peg to admit to this character flaw. Personally, I always take the high road and try to be understanding when things go wrong. It’s just not necessary to get all upset….just be…cause some…..one, this *%%# computer is slowing dow……again….why the *%$#&* can’t the cable comp………speed it *$#*…up….OK, I thinks it’s alright now. Anyway, as I was saying, I hope you can learn to be more like me when things go wrong.
Your pal, Al
LikeLike
I’m sure your wife is too much of a lady to swear. I’m so ashamed.
LikeLike
I do the same thing. Unfortunately, I also do it when others are in the car. I do try to restrain myself if the other is Kelsea, but teenagers have heard more things than I can even imagine these days, so sometimes I slip up. Usually, I focus more on commentary about the other drivers intelligence levels than just curses – in fact, I do try to come up with creative invective.
LikeLike
That’s what I should do – concentrate on more creative invective. Not only that, Gilligan, I should think-up smarty-pants cracks to slam them with.
LikeLike
Years back, I worked the Sunday afternoon shift at a local diner. I would take time to catch the Sunday service, then rush to work. One Sunday, I left my purse on the pew. The diner was packed when I got there – a sure sign of a bad day. About fifteen minutes into my shift, I pulled a coffeepot from the machine and caught the edge of the cup where the grounds are kept, sending the steaming hot grounds down my bare arm. I swore a blue streak. Everyone in the diner must have heard me. Including the preacher, who now stood behind me holding my purse. Soooo embarrassing!
LikeLike
Ouch! That hurts (both the arm and the pastor). I imagine he’s heard it all before, though that doesn’t mean you necessarily want him to hear it from you.
LikeLike
I was once on a conference call for work that had lots of very important people on it. At one point, I was going to say something, but I dropped my phone and reflexively let out a single very bad word. I was pretty sure no one had heard, though, because the phone had fallen to the floor and the sound quality had been kind of spotty on the call anyway. So I picked up the phone to say the thing I’d originally intended to say, and started with “can everyone hear me?” — and someone said “we can hear you VERY well”. Oops.
LikeLike
I guess most of us are guilty of this, but it still doesn’t leave a great impression, does it? When I was a kid, only rough men swore – and then, never in the presence of a lady. Seems I’ve been corrupted by, and have embraced, the declining standards of society. Sigh.
LikeLike
We all stumble and fall, and offend in many things. If we don’t offend in speech, we have a fully-developed character, a perfect man, able to control the whole body and entire nature. (James 3:2)
I don’t think any of us have attained perfection yet. 🙂
LikeLike
No, but we’re supposed to at least head in the perfection direction, right? 🙂
LikeLike
Your g.d. secret’s safe with me, Peg.
LikeLike
I’m so, effin’ glad of that, Jules.
LikeLike
Oh my word, Peggelina! Ahhh! hahaha! I can’t even get past that picture! I am dying right now! You have made my day.
I also suffer from this affliction, I admit. I can manage to control it and almost never swear, unless I am alone in the car. I am normally a shy, sweet, meek and mild person. If someone cuts in front of me–my head spins around and it’s all what the F**** is this ******* doing, get a F****** license you big ********!
I am so ashamed.
LikeLike
I think I may have tapped into a collective experience – all of us meek and mild types, driving around unleashing our inner-swear-tigers on the road.
LikeLike
Thank the Lord for the shift row above the numbers — otherwise, I’d never be able to communicate!!!!
LikeLike
I think thanking the Lord for making it easier to be profane may get you hit by lightning.
LikeLike
Loved the nursing home vision. When I was in high school I worked a summer in a nursing home and there was this very tiny, prim looking woman who would sit in her wheelchair at the corner of her wing and cuss and holler at anybody who walked by. She said things I had never heard elsewhere and since. I think she had some pent-up anger issues. Perhaps related to other drivers as well.
LikeLike
You have seen the future, and it is me.
LikeLike
Ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!! I see the picture. Better add MK and me to that picture, with the younger sibs coming to visit, wiping the drool off our chins and slipping happy pills into our food … wait, that’s too real. 🙂
Love the picture. Made my day 🙂
LikeLike
Yeah, the 3 of us will be lined up at the nursing home, fighting over clothes and blankets like we were kids again.
LikeLike
I admire your desire to be socially acceptable, Peg. Alas, I gave that up years ago.
I like the idea of pooling our swear words. Clown-F**K is great. Any more out there? My new favorite is A**-Hat.
LikeLike
That is a fine word, truly worthy to be added to anyone’s obscenity arsenal. Putting it in my rolodex now.
LikeLike
I work in a place where it’s not only not frowned upon to swear, it’s rather encouraged. We don’t interact with the outside world except through telephones and we’re all terribly twisted individuals. We’ve all long since decided most of us could never keep a job in another business. I’ve toned down my swearing significantly in recent years, wanting not to sound like a really unattractive person, and now my coworkers think I’m born again or something. (No offense, Praise.)
LikeLike
Isn’t it amazing how right becomes wrong and up becomes down? You know, life is really, really weird. And don’t worry. My brother, the Praise Guy, has a pretty twisted sense of humor for a righteous dude.
LikeLike
None taken, singlecell — are you kept in a single cell? See one of Peg’s other blogs — maybe she can smuggle in a fruitcake with a file in it…
LikeLike
I barely know you, but based on the few posts I’ve read: Wal-Mart Musical, the Mitten (was that called the finger), The Sky is Falling post (note; I’m not a perfectionist), I’m a little surprised by this news.
LikeLike
If you knew me you’d be even MORE surprised. This is not the sort of thing you’d think I’d do. I debated doing this post but decided the truth had to be told in the interest of full disclosure (and funniness). Don’t hate me.
LikeLike
i am provoked by the **@)# sewing machine.
LikeLike
Oh, am I so with you on that this week. I’ve been trying to finish some projects and have had the top thread snapping every few inches. I almost threw the thing through the window. I had the problem with red thread and green, but not the white or black so I wonder if it’s just the thread – I got it in a bag at a thrift store.
LikeLike
By the time you get old and are in some kind of an institution, people around you can turn their hearing aides off. Cuss away!
LikeLike
Very true, but since I’ll also be hard of hearing, I’ll probably be shouting by then.
LikeLike
Don’t forget, Peggy, that you don’t have to get mad…you can get even! When somebody pisses you off, you can blog about it later!
Wendy
LikeLike
You’re right – I have all this awesome bloggy power! Mhua=hua-hua!
LikeLike
My ‘language’ is pretty bad.
I need to work on it.
It’s actually starting to lose any effect.
$&*%
LikeLike
You know, you really have a point. A friend of my husband’s uses the F word instead of “um” as a conversational filler. It really has no shock factor anymore. He’d have to say “golly gee-whiz” to get anyone’s attention.
LikeLike
I don’t even drive and I have started to suffer from the same affliction!
Normally I reserve it for particularly persistent telesales people or computer issues….. I am well know for sending emails to out IT titled ” Bl**dy pc being a numpty f**k again “.
Unfortunately I got caught by my boss once on the sales rep thing… a particularly nasty man kept phoning every ½ hour trying to get me to sign up bla bla bla…. his number was withheld so after about 10 calls of hassle a withheld number came up so I grabbed the phone and shouted I didn’t want to f****** sign with him… it was my boss checking in from his house – Oops
LikeLike
Ha ha! Seems a perfectly reasonable response to me. Did you get out of that with your job?
LikeLike
Luckily my boss realised I’d been hounded by the horrid man again and just laughed it off! I was mortified ( I still work for him now! )
LikeLike
I’ve noticed that my tourette’s is…what do you call contagious by association? Meaning I catch it from others, especially when I watch marathon shows like Rescue Me for hours. It’s about an Irish fireman and I guess all firemen and the Irish, curse…alot. I didn’t know that about them but now I do. Maybe it’s that tiny bit of Irish DNA that is unduly influenced? Because I also get an urge to drink whiskey and get into bare knuckle fights, followed by bouts of poetry!
LikeLike
Definitely an Irish trait. Then you start crying about your poor, dear mother.
LikeLike
This post reminds me of this song, which I think is particularly appropriate for the topic you are writing about:
Enjoy!
LikeLike
In reference to the irritating drivers in particular, and to the other idiots that you encounter in general.
LikeLike
Gotta say, that’s pretty funny. I may be singing that song the next time someone cuts me off.
LikeLike
After 12 years in Asia, I’ve got to dial down my Driver’s Tourette’s because they understand English here.
LikeLike
Just keep the windows up when you’re having an attack.
LikeLike
The Open Road is like Open Season on decency and honor. right?
LikeLike