“Profanity is the linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherf***er.”
Those were the sage words of my friend, a former Marine armorer, whose words egged me on over the edge when I was waffling back and forth whether or not I was going to do a cuss jar for Lent last year. I’m not even Catholic, but I thought it would be a fun challenge. Five dollars per offense for saying any of George Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words for 40 days.
I did mostly alright, though my deployment to Operation: Starting Gun may have accounted for a disproportionate percentage of the offenses. Mind you, I don’t have anything against coarse language, but Team Rubicon volunteers can get twitchy between deployments and we cope by maintaining readiness and chipping away at our weaknesses.
One of my weaknesses is my tendency to fall back on four-letter words instead of being mindful enough to articulate my thoughts and expectations. It’s hard for your battle buddy to help you load up the vehicle in the morning when you refer to everything from a chainsaw, to a case of water, to a box of N95 masks as a “chingadera.”
This year, it was time to up the ante. Cuss for disaster relief. Ninety-day cleanse at $10 per offense. My 90 days are now up, and I won’t disclose the final amount in the jar of cash I brought down to Team Rubicon HQ, but I’m pleased to say they haven’t felt the need to discontinue fundraising efforts.
