What the !?!

Fiona’s lounging about in her Hello Kitty pajamas last weekend, quietly knitting her favorite teddy bear a little scarf when she drops a stitch and blurts out, “Oh fuck!” I’m so shocked I can’t speak. I stand over her searching for a severe reprimand and wind up just stammering, “What did you just say?! No. Stop! Don’t repeat yourself. I heard it. What are you thinking?” She’s uncharacteristically contrite, “I’m sorry Mommy. It just slipped out.” She apologies so sweetly that I calm down and forget about it. Until later, while walking with Myles, discussing a scene we read in Harry Potter. Harry and Ron are trying to save Hermoine from a mean giant troll and Ron yells, “Hey, pea brain!” Myles tells me he wouldn’t yell “Hey, pea brain” if he encountered a troll. “I’d be so freaked out!” he says. “I’d probably yell,” – and here Myles switches from chatting to actually yelling -- “Oh FUUUCK!” He resumes chatting, like what he just yelled across the entire village didn’t block all blood flow to my muscles. “I mean, a troll… I think that could really hurt if he hit you with his club…plus all his drooling and gross slobber… Mom? What are you doing?” I’m frozen, ten paces behind him, jaw open, no words coming out. “What?” he asks innocently. He really doesn’t realize he sounds like the most literate kid in the trailer park. Nobody around us seems fazed in the least. Fuck is such a common word here. The boys in his school use it all the time. Ditto Fiona’s classmates. I’m still not used to hearing it, especially from my kids’ mouths. But it is such a part of the Irish lingo that I think its edge has dulled. Radio announcers, TV commentators, newspaper columnists all use the word. Everyone calls Brian Cowen, the Irish Prime Minister, by his nickname, “Biffo,” which stands for Big Ignorant Fucker From Offaly. I was shocked to hear this, having assumed for months that Biff was just a cute pet name for Brian until our friend Sam explained the acronym. I asked Sam, a respectable member of the Royal College of Surgeons, if he didn’t think it was a tad disrespectful to the Prime Minister. “Disrespectful?” Sam replied, puzzled. “He can’t help it if he’s from County Offaly.” Sometimes I think I’m living in a sort of opposite universe where fuck is as benign a word as freckle, but pants means something really illicit. It’s hard for me to figure these things out, since I don’t have any close girlfriends here to ask. I would test out my theory on the other moms at school, but I’m too shy. I’d like to say, “Hey gals, fucking gorgeous weather this morning, huh?” just to see if I get any reaction at all. But the last conversation I had at drop-off didn’t go so well. A mom complimented me on my torn Levis. I was wearing black stockings underneath. “Oh, thank you Maeve,” I said. “I like to think the black peeking through somehow elevates my tatty pants.” She suddenly stopped smiling at me, and gracefully walked away to join up with her friends. I was confused about the cold shoulder, until Fiona told me that pants means underwear, which are usually called knickers, and trousers are what you wear to cover your legs. Great. Maeve thinks I wear jeans with holes to reveal my racy ripped lingerie. (“Fucking floozie,” she probably thinks when she sees me now.) Onto more evidence that supports my theory: Guys wave their middle fingers here to their friends in situations where American guys would high-five each other, and French guys would probably kiss each other. It’s a gesture that could mean ‘Great to see you;’ ‘Thanks for the lift;’ or ‘Later, dude,’ etc., depending upon the situation. But John brought forth the best evidence of all. He called me from his office on his birthday to report that it was the feast day of St. Fechin. “Who? St. Fucking?” I asked, pausing my grocery shopping. “You’re joking.” Curious about this Irish saint who shares a feast day with my husband, I’ve subsequently asked a fair number of people what they know about St. Fechin. Nobody yet has said, “crazy name for a saint, eh?” Nope. They all say something along the lines of “St. Fechin? He’s a martyr, maybe… forget exactly what he did. But I know the name well.”