It struck me this morning just how many words there are in the English language that are taboo. We can THINK them all we want. It's just not very dignified to actually SAY them. Remember the fervor that was created by George Carlin with his list of Seven Dirty Words That You Can't Say On Television???? I remember laughing my hind end off when I first heard his skit. HA!!!! YOU thought I was going to write ass, didn't you? Even though this particular word was not on George's hit list, it was years before we heard it used regularly over the airwaves.
Quite a few of these words have morphed into acceptability over the years. Fart is such a word, a real no-no to be said OR heard in my day. When I was little, it was the utterance of this word that honestly and truly caused my mother to shove a bar of Lux into my mouth. I also recall a student, Gary, who was in my sixth grade class. He always had to sit in the front row so that he could be within arm's reach of the teacher. Gary was a living legend because he could burp AND pass gas on command. Mr. Gibson would be writing on the chalkboard yet ANOTHER sentence that we were to supposed to diagram, his back turned to us. Gary would glance over his shoulder, wink at us with a grin on his face, and the next thing you knew, PHFFFFFFFFFFT!!!! The class would erupt in laughter, Mr. Gibson's arm would shoot out for Gary's shoulder like some robotic device, and off to the principal's office they would trudge. While they were gone on their little visit, a classmate would get out of his seat to open the window.
I noticed in last week's Dear Abby column that a writer could not bring herself to actually write the word fart; she chose the word "fluffie". I had NEVER heard this particular substitution before, so off to Googleland I went. Oh my. Did you know that a fluffie can be 1)a girl in her 20's, living with her parents, no kids and in a loser job; 2)a pair of flip flops; or 3)an Australian beach thong. I can now cross off "Learn a new vocabulary word" from my to-do list.
We come up with all sorts of ways to say words without actually having to say them. One very popular way is with alphabet letters. You can get away with lots by using them. Examples might be T&A, GD, or son of a B. The mother of them all is the immortal "F" word. YIKES!!!! But there is no doubt in anyone's mind which f word out of literally thousands is represented by this solitary letter. Another one that I remember was overhearing my Aunt Dorothy whispering to Aunt Carol that one of her neighbor's daughters was PG. SHE figured out the F word REALLY good, didn't she?????
In our house, I try hard not to use any of these words or acronyms. But I will admit that my husband and I do say one letter on a frequent basis in code. We're not allowed to say the actual word anymore because it's politically incorrect. You see, we have Venus the cat. Don't let this cute little white hairball fool you. She's H-E-double hockey sticks on wheels (See how easily the alpha code works???). We know in our hearts that something is not quite right with Venus, and if she were human, she would be mentally challenged. Yes, Venus is R.
For the past seven years, we have dealt with our little R kittie, as we affectionately call her. I really don't mean any disrespect or to be offensive to any reader with this term; and if you are offended, I apologize upfront, it's not meant to be hurtful. But if you knew Venus, mentally challenged simply just doesn't begin to cut the mustard. Take Lily, who is a litter mate of Venus. Lily sleeps most of the time, purrs on your lap occasionally, snorts catnip upon occasion, and ignores you whenever the mood strikes. But VENUS is the reason why I have to sleep with earplugs in my ears, otherwise I wouldn't get ANY sleep. She practices her gravity skills from the time we go to bed until about 5 A.M.. She will knock any item left on the bathroom counter onto the floor. Combs, toothbrushes, drinking glasses, the basket containing the extra roll of toilet paper. The actual item makes no difference to Venus. I am not making this one up: this morning, I fished my soap dispenser out of the bathroom trash can. TRUE! A couple months ago, I wrote about weaving a basket. Yup, it was on the floor this morning in the kitchen, along with a wisk and a pepper shaker. Venus is the reason why the Faberge egg that I inherited from Aunt Carol died a slow and painful death from multiple contusions. That was one bad ass Humpty Dumpty Day. She's the reason why my coffee canister is a testament to superglue. BAM BAM BAM, all night long. She's the reason why anything that I have of value is in a cardboard box in the attic. Plastic and wicker, if you please.
For being an R kittie, Venus accels in science. Constantly working on the notions of Sir Newton, the wonderful world of reflectivity also allows Venus to test her Bam Theory. BAM- she hurls herself into the wall because a car has reflected its headlights into the livingroom. My husband likes to taunt her with one of those laser pens. For an hour solid, she will chase that little red dot in circles or up and down the hallway. She'll skid across the kitchen floor, BAM! Into the kitchen door she sails. If he shines the laser on the wall, she will run right into it. If I get a pan lid out of the cupboard and the sun hits it just right, I'll hear this cackling. There is Venus, chattering away at the reflection on the ceiling with this blank look on her face.
Venus also likes to open things. My husband had to devise metal bars to hook our louvre door handles together that lead to the washer and dryer because Venus has discovered how to open the doors. If she throws herself enough times into our sliding doors that we have on all of our closets, they will jiggle bit by bit, allowing her enough space to stick her paw through until she can open these, too. A couple of years ago, hubby and I purchased this automatic cat feeder. What a GREAT invention, we both thought. You fill up the food dish compartment, put on the lid and then set the timer so that the lid pops open at the appointed time. Venus discovered that by placing both paws on the dial and then dancing in circles, she can unset the timer and make the lid pop open, anytime she wants. As I watch her do this, I scratch my head in disbelief, wondering how she ever figured this out.
Venus's gifts aren't just science related, they also span the musical world. When I sit at my piano and let my finger hit ONE key, she comes running. Up she jumps and runs up and down the keyboard. No wonder I stink at piano, I never get to practice. Have I mentioned that Venus is deaf? She must feel the vibrations from the music, and she obviously likes that. Perhaps her deafness is also why she has no fear at all, because she's never heard me scream at her, or has never heard the BAM of something breaking on the floor. It's just her and her little mind in her little world as she gleefully chases her tail or curls up on my lap every evening at exactly 8:30 on the dot. She enjoys chasing the cursor on the computer monitor, and she likes watching television until the heat from the set lulls her into a deep sleep. That's her, pictured above, fast asleep after she caught up on her current events from the evening newscast. You can frequently hear me say, "She is sooooooooo cute, I just can't stand it." And I mean it. She's our little R kittie, and I don't mean Republican.
