Posts
(forewarning:
this post could get highly spiritual and deep and also pitiful, too. it
talks about the power of prayer (unfortunately…), my dirty mouth, and
my lugaubrious (thank YOU thesaurus.com) dating life. and also it’s
long-winded.)
once upon a ninth grade, i was a vision of
highlighted hair, liquid eyeliner, and social awkwardness. i also had
perfectly spotless language and cringed at the sound of a curse word.
then, once upon a crisp, cold soccer game i let out my first
(well…probably fifth) curse word as i lost the ball to a nearby
defender. it felt so…nice (cussing, that is). like a burp that had been
buried down deep inside my stomach and was just waiting to be released
into the air.
as the season forged on, i began to be
more bold and creative with my cursing (i lost the ball A LOT); strands
of poetic combinations and variations of naughty explicitives. i was
getting good.
i knew it was wrong, but i justified it with the four white lines around me. and, after all, i was getting good.
then one day we had a lesson in church
(…or something, this part is kind of a blur) about clean language and
how it’s so feminine and pretty and respectable and polite.
“…effballs!” i thought to myself as i sunk in my chair.
but i decided to make a change. my mouth
was getting dirtier by the day and i wanted to be feminine and pretty
and respectable and polite. my mother (or father…this part is a blur!!)
told me to get down on my knees and pray that i would be able to resist
the temptation to curse those wonderfully creative strands of curse
words. that i would rise above. so i went home and i prayed and prayed
that i wouldn’t be tempted to curse anymore.
the next day at my soccer game, as i was
savoring my few minutes on the field and taking a shot on goal, a
defender from the other team came in from the side, knocked me on my
hiney, and blew out my knee. i was out for the season…and coincidentally
my dirty mouth was, too! my cursing took a seat on the bench right next
to me…i was cured! hallelujah (or something?)!
…obvsauce my dirty mouth caught back up to
me again (eff!) and i got right back into my habit of cursing when i
played sports…and when i dropped things…and when i realized how many
calories were in that large spoonful of nutella i was eating four times a
day.
last monday, my friends wanted to set up a
fantastically fun ‘group date’ to a haunted forest (group dating, it’s
all the rage here!). i complied and asked a boy who i thought would be
fun and nonthreatening and was fairly hygienic, i’m mostly sure. he
agreed!
wednesday, in my book of mormon class, the
teacher gave a lesson on clean language (does this lesson just follow
me around?!). he gave us a challenge (which he prefaced “now i’m sure
none of you have a language problem…” sink in chair) to try to clean up our mouths and pray that we would be able to resist temptation to curse.
once again: i went home and i prayed and prayed that i wouldn’t be tempted to curse anymore.
that friday, i was getting all dolled up
and ready to go. i combed my hair and put on thirteen layers of mascara
and even flossed! thirty minutes before we left, i thought i should
probably give my manly date a little jingle and see if he was still up
for the adventure.
me: “HIIIIII! we are going to leave in
thirty minutes-ish! hope you concealed all of your weapons and have your
party pants on!” (funny, right?)(disclaimer: i may twist this
conversation around to make me seem like the wizard of wit and
conversation)
man-boy: “oh! hey! brooke! hey!
okay…yeah…so, there’s A LOT of traffic right now and i bet we would have
to sit in the car for like, two hours. should we still go? doesn’t that
seem like a long time?”
me: “yes! yes it does. but we have it all figured out, don’t you worry.”
man-boy: (…awkward pause)”…oh, yeah! that’s cool! okay, well…”
me: “yes! yes?”
man-boy: “it’s like, super late. and i
don’t know, like it’s late and i don’t know if i want to drive in a car
and walk through a forest and…(this continues for another three
minutes)…and yeah, so probably this is a no-go.”
me: “oh, radical! totes! totes-ma-goats (…i get weird when faced with disappointment). that’s totally fine. kseeyabye!”
and click.
after i had gotten all of my woes and
sorrows out with the aid of bottomless bowls of cereal, i began to gain
some perspective on the issue and decided to blame it all on the big man
upstairs and that darned book of mormon challenge.
you see, i had prayed to not be tempted to
cuss anymore, not to be able to resist temptation. that big dude knows
me too well. he knew that if i was let into a haunted forest (with acres
and acres of spook), i would begin shouting my favorite four letter
word like it was going out of style (i really, really wanted to find a
better idiom…that will just have to do; eff…). he knew that i would
shout away the potential of any upright suitor at byu and shout away the
potential of any dates…period.
yesterday in class i went up to my book of
mormon teacher and told him the whole, long story. he sort of looked at
me in bewilderment and told me that he heard the haunted forest wasn’t
that great, that i should try again with the challenge, and that i
should extract the phrase ‘totes-ma-goats’ from my vocabulary prontosap.
ha.
so the moral of that story is…that prayer
is real! and it works! unfortunately well, sometimes! and that my
pitiful dating life is really not my fault. nor is it the fault of my
new desire to wear clothes that make me look like i am box-shaped or the
super cheap and addictive chocolate covered almonds at the creamery.
rather it is…prayer’s fault?
the end.
*disclaimer: i may
have exaggerated a lot bit. also i am still a stalwart believer in
prayer and how great it can be and the positive influence it brings.
also, although i am trying to have a cleaner mouth, if you’d like to
hear one of my creative combinations of explicitives, just ask and i may
or may not whisper them to you over a soft drink of choice and giggles…
