Watch Your Blankety Blank Language

By James L. Davis

I am not a man who likes to cuss. You’ll notice I did not say that I am a man not prone to cuss, because I am a man prone to cuss. I just don’t like it. But like it or not, sometimes my mouth will form a cuss word or two and spit them out before I can stop it, usually when I am trying to get something working again that has inexplicably stopped working.

“Well, why won’t you blankety blank blank…” my mouth will say and I will find myself shocked, totally shocked to hear the words leap past my lips. Of course my look of shock is nothing compared to my children’s look of shock, which involves wide eyes, gaping mouths and pointing fingers followed by the chant “You swore, Dad, you swore, I can’t believe you swore. Dad, you swore” repeated until I swear again.

It turns out that cussing runs in my family, just like our addiction to Pepsi. I inherited my cussing from my dad. When my mom told me this I thought it was strange because I do not recall having heard my dad cuss a great deal when I was young, but apparently he was considered one of the greatest colorful speakers of his age when growing up in the woods of North Carolina. It seems he reached the pinnacle of his cussing career as a small boy of not much more than 6 or 7 when he asked if he could go to work with his dad and was told no. My dad did not care for this answer in the least and so he stood up on the fence post of the corral and proceeded to pelt my grandfather with so many cuss words used in so many varied and colorful ways that even the pigs and chickens began to blush and turn away. My grandfather could not stop laughing long enough to punish his young son, but I guess my grandmother could and when she heard of the cussing my dad had given his dad she took care of the problem. I’m not entirely sure what she did to take care of the problem, but it must have worked because my dad hasn't had too many cuss words slip out of his mouth since then.

But I have. As a boy I used to practice cussing safely out of hearing range from my mom and dad. I would load my mouth with a cuss or two and let them roll around on my tongue, trying out the feel of them before letting them spit out “blankety blank,” I would say to myself, feeling somehow much more grown up because I had cussed. I even replayed conversations I had earlier in the day, only this time sprinkling the conversation with a cuss word or two to give it more flavor. “Why yes mam, I did do my blank homework, thank you very blankety blank much for asking.”

While I would practice my cussing in private  safely out of earshot of anyone who might take a belt to my hindquarters, I did not ever recall sharing my colorful speech with anyone until I became an adult. Then I joined the military. While some people might consider a cuss word or two to be punctuation marks in the spoken word, in the military cuss words are quite often used to fill the spaces between words, because the military abhors unused spaces. I learned this first from my drill instructor and then from every commanding officer I ever had.

“Airman blankety Davis! What blank is blankety wrong blank with blankety you?” I had this question asked of me more times in my military career than I have ever had any question asked of me in my entire life.

At first I tried to answer the blankety blank question sincerely, but I soon learned that it was a rhetorical question, there was no real answer to what was wrong with Airman Davis.

“Sir!” I learned to reply. “I blankety have blankety no blankety idea blankety what blank is blank wrong blankety with blank me, blan­kety sir!”

After eight years in the military my language was at times so peppered with cuss words that all I did was cuss and by the time I got through cussing I had forgotten what I was actually going to say. So I cussed and started over. It took me almost 10 years to work the cussing out of my vocabulary and as my children will gladly point out, I still cuss from time to time, but it is back to being the exclamation mark of my spoken word, not the filler between the words.

Of course, in my opinion my children cuss as well, even though they will argue the fact. They just use different words than I ever did. While my cuss words are easily identified as cuss words, theirs are a little harder to recognize  They sound an awful lot like the cuss words of old, they've just swapped out a letter here or there. So while I will cuss, “blankety blank blank” they will cuss “blinkety blink blink.” I have no idea what the real difference is, but apparently my kids feel that saying “blinkety blink” is not nearly as horrifying as saying “blankety blank.”

My wife, who doesn’t say blankety blank or blinkety blink, has informed all of us that she is tired of all of the blankety blink blink language in our house and if it doesn't stop soon she is going to take matters into her own hands.

    I think she’s talked to my dad and found out how his mom got him to quit cussing, so I think it’s in our best interests to stop all of the blankety blank blink blink cussing…and soon.

Beware the Blanket Thief

By James L. Davis

It has recently come to my attention that I am a blanket thief. It happened because one night I woke in the middle of the night and thought to myself that we had a very comfortable vibrating bed. Then I remembered that we do not own a vibrating bed.

The vibrations were coming from my wife, who was shivering violently. She was shivering so violently that her feet were on the verge of being shaken free from their frozen position in the small of my back. This is their normal sleeping position. I believe that that the normal sleeping position for most women’s feet is in the small of the back of their husband. I do not understand this and the simple fact that women can so position themselves to plant their feet in the small of a man’s back while also stealing their pillow speaks of an elasticity that no man could ever hope to duplicate.

I was mortified to discover that I was in fact a blanket thief and I threw the blankets back over my wife. She immediately curled them around her body to form a cocoon of warmth, all the while keeping her feet firmly planted in the small of my back. I gave the blankets to her because I don’t really use them for warmth, I curl them into a large, comfortable pillow to replace the one my wife has stolen from me. I would use my wife’s pillow but my wife seems to believe her pillow belongs on the floor, because that is where it always ends up.

Had I been using the blankets as blankets instead of a pillow, the fact that I had stolen them would have been of no consequence to my wife, because when sleeping my wife forms her body so completely to my own that the blankets would cover us both anyway. The fact that she does so again makes me wonder about the amazing elasticity of a woman’s body. It also makes me wonder why we have a queen size bed, because we only use a quarter of it. Depending on how we choose to rotate our bed and where I decide to position myself for sleep, we could in theory sleep on our queen size bed three times longer than the average couple.

Of course that only applies when we are sleeping on the bed together, because the way we sleep on the bed together is totally and completely different than how we sleep on the bed by ourselves. When sleeping on the bed together my wife waits patiently while I try out one position or the other and finally settle into the same position that I sleep in every night, curled with my face to the outside of the bed, teetering precariously on the edge and at risk of falling off the bed entirely. Then she forms her own body to mine, something like the face hugger in the Alien movies, but much more pleasant. Once we have melded into one sleepy mass, we fall asleep almost immediately. But that is not the case when sleeping in bed alone. When I have the bed to myself, I sleep in the center of the bed, spread eagle with both my pillow and my wife’s pillow under my head. I have observed that my wife sleeps in pretty much the same fashion when she has the bed to herself.

While I could speculate that the reason we sleep so closely together is because of our love for each other, the real reason, I suspect, that we sleep curled together like we do has much less to do with our love for each other and more to do with the fact that our stomachs are sentient beings intent on the overthrow of the rest of our bodies.

I suspect as much because on occasion I will wake in the middle of the night for reasons other than the realization that I have stolen all of the blankets. When I do I have been shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that my wife’s stomach and mine are talking to each other.

It sounds innocent enough, sure, but I believe there is something sinister at work between our two stomachs. Lying in bed I listen closely as my wife’s stomach makes a whispering demand of my own stomach.

“Orrrmmm ahhhh errr errr grrrpp,” her stomach will say.

“Uhh grrshhh ahh,” my stomach will reply.

I have tried to tell myself that it is simply the rumblings of two stomachs in the middle of the night, but I have awakened to their alien dialogue far too often to believe their conversation to be so innocent. They are plotting something, if not the overthrow of the civilized world, then at the very least, the overthrow of our own bodies.

How else can my wife and I have the same craving for chocolate chunk ice cream while watching The Biggest Loser, if not by some diabolical plot of our stomachs? Coincidence, you say? I think not.

While I may not know exactly what our two stomachs may be up to, I believe that in the scheme of things my wife’s stomach is the leader of the two. The only proof I offer is the demanding quality of the sounds my wife’s stomach makes and the subservient wails my stomach gives in reply. I have listened to them moan and gurgle long enough now that I am beginning to slowly unravel their language. I believe their conversation revolves around the theft of a blanket.

When Deer Seek Asylum

When Deer Seek Asylum

By James L. Davis

I was awakened in the middle of the night.

“Stay down. They might be watching.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. 

“They’re trying to kill me.”

I’m not used to being awakened in the middle of the night, except by my wife’s dog, who will on occasion yawn to tell me she wants to go outside.   Not that she needs to go outside; she just wants to go out in the middle of the night to have a look around. 

Not used to being awakened by a strange voice in the middle of the night, I asked the obvious: “Who are ‘They’?”

“I don’t know,” my late-night intruder responded. “But there’s thousands of them, all dressed in orange.”

I reached out and turned on the night stand light and my wife mumbled incoherently and threw the blankets over her head.  I wished she hadn't because I wasn't quite prepared to deal with what was in our bedroom. There was a deer standing at the end of our bed, looking rather distressed.

“You’re a deer,” I said, stating the obvious.

“I’m a Buck,” my intruder informed me.

“Well, why are you in my bedroom?” I asked.

“Because they’re trying to kill me!” The deer went to my elliptical and started to work out.  I was wondering who kept changing the level setting. “I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what I’ve done. But they’re out to kill me.”

I tried again to rub the sleep from my eyes. “Well, you’re a deer.”

“The dog said you were quick.”

“You talk to the dog?”

“Sometimes she comes out at night and we chat.”

“That explains a lot.  What I meant was you are a deer and it is Deer Season.”

“Meaning?” The deer was up to level nine on the elliptical and still not breathing hard. That explains why they can jump so well.

“Meaning that the people in orange are hunters and they’re trying to kill you for a reason.”

“What reason? I don’t even know who they are.”

“Well, either to eat you or to cut your head off and put it on their wall.”

The buck climbed off the elliptical.  “You’re kidding, right?

“Afraid not,” I said.

“Are you a hunter?”

“Nope.” I said. “I don’t care for the taste of deer meat.”

“So now you’re saying I taste bad.”

“I didn't say you tasted bad. I didn't realize deer were so hostile.”

“Hostile!” The deer raised his voice, making my wife mumble and bury herself deeper within the covers. “Let me tell you about hostile. I’m getting ready for the rut, feeling pretty good about myself, wanting to strut around a little, and then all of a sudden BAM! People I don’t even know are shooting at me. Wouldn't you be hostile?”

“Suppose so. But could you keep it down, you’ll wake my wife and the kids.”

“I’m a deer.” The deer pranced to my side of the bed “They won’t understand me.”

“I do,” I said.

“Yes. But you’re not normal.”

“So I've been told. What do you want from me anyway?”

“Sanctuary.”

“Sorry, all my neighbors are hunters and I don’t want them storming through the house looking for you. You can take my orange hat and vest if you want, maybe they’ll think you’re a hunter yourself.”

“Fat chance. I've got a rack to die for.”

“Interesting choice of words,” I said. “Why’d you come to me in the first place?”

“Your dog said you might be able to help me.”

“ I've got to do something about that dog.”

The deer was pacing now and I could see he was becoming quite agitated again. “You’re not going to remember any of this when you wake up, are you?”

“I sincerely hope not,” I said.

The buck turned and bounced out of my room, down the hall and out the door and I was able to get back to sleep.

The next morning I was quite convinced that I either needed to cut back on my caffeine intake or go immediately into therapy. But then I noticed that my safety hat and vest were missing. There were deer droppings on my welcome mat as well and to top it off what I had always thought was a yawn from my wife’s dog now seemed suspiciously like a laugh.

The Dentist Will See You Now

By James L. Davis

When I was a baby and my first baby tooth finally protruded from my baby gums it already had a baby cavity.   For this reason I have logged more hours in a dentist chair than the average person and for that reason I have had more than my fair share of time to ponder the joys that can only be experienced when you have several people put their hands in your mouth at the same time and ask you about the weather.

I don’t mind telling you and I’m fairly sure that my dentist won’t be offended when I say that I am not comfortable sitting in a dentist chair.  I never have been and I’m fairly confident that I never will be. 

I say that knowing full well that I have fallen asleep in a dentist chair, which may lead you to believe that I was very comfortable, but if that is what you believe you are mistaken.  I can fall asleep virtually anywhere at any time.  It’s a gift.  Some people have amazing talents.  They can sing or dance or run or compute numbers in their head or have entire conversations without using the word “like.”  I can’t do any of those things, but I can, like, fall asleep at a moment’s notice.  And the more stressed I am, the easier it is for me to sleep.  Which means lately I can sleep virtually 24 hours a day.  In a couple of weeks I figure I’ll be in a coma.

So, despite the fact that I have snored in a dentist chair, I still am not comfortable in a dentist chair and there are numerous reasons why, not the least of which is I do not like pain.  I also do not like to have other people’s hands in my mouth.  I don’t even particularly like having my own hand in my mouth, although I am apparently ok with having my foot in my mouth.  I don’t like the sound the drill makes as it echoes through my skull and I don’t like to see smoke coming out of my mouth.  For that reason I do not keep my eyes open when I sit in the dentist chair.  I clinch them shut, open wide and hope the dentist or his assistant will let me know when it is all over and I can go home. 

But the things that I don’t like pale in comparison to the things I worry about in a dentist chair.  I worry about a wide variety of things while sitting in a dentist chair.  I worry because the dentist and his army of assistants are not only looking into my mouth, they are looking up my nose and I am not fond of people looking up my nose.  It’s not a phobia or anything; I just prefer not to have people looking into my nostrils.  So, I guess it’s fair to say that if you are in the body piercing business you will never have to worry about me asking you to put a piercing through my nose, because I never will.  I also worry that I might sneeze while all of those hands are in my mouth, so I spend a whole lot of time wrinkling my nose to avoid sneezing, which draws attention to my nose and fuels my worry over people looking up my nose.

But the number one thing I worry about the most while sitting in the dentist chair is I worry that I will become engulfed in a fit of laughter and the dentist will drill through my cheek.  This is not because I am on laughing gas, because I haven’t used laughing gas since I was a boy.  I had to stop using laughing gas at the dentist because the dentist had too difficult a time getting any work done on my mouth.  Apparently, under the influence of laughing gas I am prone to sing the hits of Aretha Franklin, which I find odd because when I am not under the influence of laughing gas I cannot think of a single Aretha Franklin song, let alone sing one.

No, the reason I worry about breaking into hysterics is completely and totally the fault of Bill Cosby.  I grew up listening to Bill Cosby and I believe him to be among the greatest comedians that there ever was and ever will be.  The problem is that Bill Cosby has devoted an entire monologue on his experience going to the dentist.  It is one of the funniest things I have ever heard.

The problem with that is from the moment I sit down in the dentist chair to the moment I try and take my first sip of anything upon leaving the dentist chair and have it spill down my shirt I am reminded of Bill Cosby’s monologue and I fight a laughing fit.

So, while my dentist impales my mouth with a needle my eyes well with tears less with pain and more because I am fighting the urge to laugh because I do not want him to break the needle off in my gum. That may make me laugh more.  I try not to laugh when I am engaged in conversation while my mouth is full of somebody else’s hands.  I try not to laugh when my lips are numb and I am drooling across my chin.  I just close my eyes and try not to think about Bill Cosby.

At that point I usually fall asleep and have nightmares of someone looking up my nose. (Published in Family News.com)