I was recently in a restaurant with two other people when the table across the room erupted with laughter and the dropping of “F-Bombs”. You know the word I’m talking about? Now I’m going to admit that I don’t have the cleanest vocabulary in town, but come on people. Do you really have to curse, and at a loud level, in a place where families, and that includes children, are in the midst of an early evening dinner? You were so loud I thought you were talking on your cell phone. (That’s a joke!) “Dad, you said if I ever said that word you were going to wash my mouth out with soap. Are you going to wash their mouth out with soap?” “No son I’d probably get accused of trying to infringe their freedom of speech, arrested for assault, then they’d sue me and there goes your college fund.”

I once went to a very respectable eatery in town for a takeout order. As I was waiting for my order, in popped a man with his wife and boy around 10 or so I’m guessing. On the back of the father’s shirt…that’s the father now…is a drawing of a fist with one finger pointed in the air. (I think you can picture what finger that was.) Again, I just see the families with little kids asking questions about what that means. Wouldn’t you feel just a little bit embarrassed wearing something like that? I told the server I would have walked out if that appeared in front of my family. What do you say to your youngest if they ask what that means?

Church is no longer an asylum for obscene language. When walking by those who are enjoying an after service dinner in the church’s community hall, one can occasionally catch an “expletive” or two.

Movie theaters are not exempt. I attended a film a couple of weeks ago and there were only five people in the audience. Two more guys came in and sat right behind me. Imagine…400 seats in the theater and I was honored by these two clowns describing their day in words even George Carlin might be ashamed of…and they’re only a row behind me. I got up and made the move to another seat. By the way, if you like to pay ten dollars to go to a movie and sit there and whine about your day, I have a better deal for you. I’ve got a friend you can pay the ten bucks to and you can sit in one of his vacant lots and cuss yourself silly!

But it’s all around us. School, work, home, sporting events, the list goes on. Even the grocery store when the sale items are gone.

But if there’s any place where I can get a laugh out of this topic it’s at the bingo parlors. If someone yells out “bingo” almost in unison you hear a cuss word out of every blue haired lady in the building. But what’s even funnier is if it’s NOT a good bingo. Then they all scramble for the garbage cans to get those paper bingo sheets back that they threw away prematurely. Guess what they say? It isn’t “shucks” or “shoot”. There’s a reason why the floor workers say “Hold your cards”.

I guess in all reality a habit like that will never be broken. Who knows how we started saying those particular “words”? But I think a little self-control is evident especially when out in public.