Sometimes Four-Letter Words Are The Best Vocabulary
I've always been a huge fan of four-letter words—you know, the kind of words that, if you used them when you were a kid, your mother would make you put a quarter in a "swear jar." It seems that most of my allowance every week was spent on that swear jar, and the worst thing is that I'm not quite sure where all that money went—perhaps to help my mom buy anti-psychotic medication to keep her from wringing my neck on a daily basis. I’d usually mutter my curses under my breath in the general direction of my mother, but there were always those chance occurrences of a really big one slipping—at full volume.
This usually happened at church or at family dinners.
As I grew older, I realized that there were better words to describe my anger towards things, but those costly words still play a big part in my life. I’m not going to lie, I swear like a sailor sometimes. Especially when it comes down to the 1 Series.
It’s a magnificent machine, don’t get me wrong—but lately my own stupidity has led me to cuss it out at least twice a day. Silly, simple things that I never really had to think about, like closing my sunroof at night. Instead of being able to pull into a fantastic heated garage, I now get to park in a muddy yard, exposed to every single element imaginable, including grumpy roommates. After a long day of work, school, and fielding ridiculous pick-up lines, I just want to go home and go to bed. The farthest thing from my mind is closing the big gaping hole in my roof—I mean, what could possibly happen, right? It goes a whole lot deeper than just the morning dew that decides to envelop the interior, it’s the weird things that blow in and lodge themselves randomly inside.
Random, potentially stinky things.
After a second round of forgetting to close the sunroof, several colorful words were employed, and with a soggy bottom, I took off to accomplish my daily activities. Of course, I couldn’t just wait for the car to dry out; I’m a very important person, I had places to go. I turned the seat-warmer on and gave my buns the royal steam treatment. Although it could have been worse, I don’t recommend it.
Beyond that, there was this smell, an unidentified odor coming from somewhere. I held my breath through my hour’s commute, and as soon as I arrived safely at my destination, that car got torn apart. I checked everywhere: under seats, in the glove box, in the trunk. This mysterious odor was invisible to my eye, but a lot less forgettable to my nose. Finally, crawling onto the passenger-side floorboard, I found the culprit: I had two very wet knees. Insert colorful swear words here. The floorboard held a good quarter-inch of standing water, but it was cleverly hidden under the floor mat, which acted as a little hot-house for all the weird stuff that grows in carpet when left cold and damp for long enough. It was a smell that reminded me of cat urine, dead skunk, and baby diapers.
There was no way in the world that enough dew had accumulated to create a miniature Lake Mead in my car; there was something else going on. Investigating door, window, and windshield seals, I found them all dryer than a bad joke. But that mysterious stink-water had to be coming from somewhere! I gave up the search, however, when I realized I was running late to a very hot date clear across the county. I opened the windows to try to air out the car a bit, and drove off on my way, hoping desperately that this smell wasn’t going to permeate my skin and scare away my friend.
It started to rain en route to the date, and although I had the sunroof in the fully closed position, I got a lap full of water while taking an exit ramp in a spirited fashion—okay, truth be told, I was pretty sideways, but that’s not the point. The water that had pooled up in the sunroof gutter had finally reached the point that when the g-force of my wiggle-around-the-exit maneuver took place, the water was displaced. Culprit found: My sunroof drain was blocked!
Now, this wasn’t my first fighting-with-a-clogged-drain rodeo; I knew what to do—standard procedure, blow that sucker out. Easy enough, right? Not so much in the pouring rain, even if you find somebody to kindly hold an umbrella over the gaping hole in your roof as you're trying to dislodge whatever is blocking the drain. I got myself in position to blow, aimed, and sure enough, the air met resistance—and before I knew it, I had a face full of leaf debris and water. The umbrella-holder forgot his holding duties, and, well, just didn’t keep the interior very dry.
At this point, I said plenty of four-letter words. I did not, however, pay the swear jar.—Nikki Weed
