Frisson

 I don't work blue. 

Not here. 

Not at school. 

Event though there are plenty of times that expletives flow freely through my brain, I stop them up. I keep them inside instead of giving those around me and those who bother to take in this daily account of my misgivings and inspirations. 

Again, this does not mean that I am incapable of thinking bad words. But since I am uttering them in a place where "the S word" more often than not means "shut up," I feel compelled to watch my language. The up side of this is first and foremost it allows me to call on the advice my mother gave me so very many years ago: "You have a great vocabulary. You don't need to shortchange what you have to say by using 'those words.'"

The same cannot be said of all of my young charges. The world in which they live provides them plenty of opportunity to see, hear and fully experience Bad Words. This stands in stark contrast with my own elementary school experience in which one of my second grade classmates screamed the mother of all bad words at Ms. Hoff before he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The stunned silence in his wake gave us all pause and I am sure had a lot to do with the reason that our classmate did not return to the classroom for two days. 

Can I just say that a two-day suspension for cursing and slamming a door at the school where I work now would leave a lot of empty seats? Having to endure fits of anger that include a flurry of off-color epithets sometimes puts me on edge, leaving me with a brain full of off-color responses that have to quickly die on the vine in order to proceed with the matter at hand: de-escalation. Ultimately, these kids know that they are playing with fire, and they are likely to get burned. However, since the phone calls were make to some parents regarding their child's comportment fall on ears that are awash with that very same vocabulary. 

Where do you suppose they heard it in the first place? 

I know where I heard my initial lexicon of curse words. The kid down the street had two older brothers who kept him up to speed with every new innovation in expletives. I tried them out, of course, since that's what kids do. Which is why my mother gave me the advice about not limiting my word choice to the gutter. 

Which is why I don't tend to flinch as much anymore. I've heard it all, with the occasional new permutation. And I figure that just means I need to work harder at my job teaching them words that can convey their shock, disappointment, anger and amusement without getting written up.