British Curse Words

Sometimes when you have OCD you worry about saying weird things out loud.

And sometimes when you have OCD, because you worry about it, you do say those weird things out loud. At the sensitive age of 10 years old, I was in the kitchen with my mom talking about a class project. My class project was on fertilizer. (Don’t ask me why, I probably picked the topic and was for some reason interested in the dangers of eating chemicals).

Now – before I go any further with this story, I need to explain my family’s idea of open communication. When kissing came up on a movie, my parents would say “Close your eyes!”

My dad’s idea of talking about the birds and the bees was to covertly ask me, “Soo. Do you believe that Mary was a virgin?”

,

"Yees"

 “Do you know what that means?”

"Yees."

And that was the end of that.

Well, except that from them on I assiduously avoided any topics that might feel as intensely awkward as that did.

Ok, back to the kitchen when I was ten. I was talking to my mom about my project and practicing it in front of her. When it came time for me to say “fertilizer,” I said “testicles.”

No other context or reason other than my OCD brain made exactly what I was afraid of come true.

My mom:

“Do you know what that means?”

Me: 

I think the subconscious thought process in my mind was something along the lines of this:

“Ok I’m talking about fertilizer……roosters fertilize eggs….how does that work?…..testicles….That would be SO awkward if you said that out loud.”

And then the word came out of my mouth like a gymnast sticking a perfect landing on the mat. Loud and proud for all the world to see. Unmovable and unmistakable.

I considered trying to pretend that I had said another word similar to that. Festival, cubicle, anything but what had so very horribly come out of my mouth. I quickly realized there was no recourse and said something like, “IIIIIII have to go arrange my American Girl dolls now.”

14 years later, I was on the phone with someone from Great Britain. I used one of the exclamations that I like. Something like “man alive” or “jeezy petes.” That started a conversation about what exclamations Brits use. There was a girl from England in my ward and she would always say “bollocks” when she missed the ball during volleyball. She seemed like a nice, normal girl, so I didn't think the word would have any bad connotations. I brought up this word to my friend and he lost it on the phone. At that moment, I knew I had made a tragic mistake. How grave a mistake, I wasn’t sure, but definitely a mistake.

He composed himself, explained what it meant, and I realized that my old "fertilizer" friend had come back to afflict my life. Except this time the word was wearing a Union Jack. Loud and proud for all the world to see.

Julia Vincent Hetherton