I Swear

#!*@**#@!!!

“I didn’t like playing that team,” my youngest daughter laments, climbing into the car after her last basketball game. “The girls kept on swearing, like the “s” word and everything!”

“Not the “s” word,” I say in mock horror, holding my hand up to my mouth in my best June Cleaver imitation. “That’s shocking!”

She rolls her eyes at me, “Muh-mee!”, she breaths. “I don’t swear.”

(She and I are still at that denial stage in our relationship. I don’t swear in front of her because I am trying to set a good example and teach her better ways of expressing herself. She does not swear in front of me because to her I’m just an old fuddy duddy mother who wouldn’t even know how to swear.)

“No,” I agree, “not in front of your mother anyway.”

Her eyes grow wide as she wildly searches her memory for when she may have slipped and I might have overheard her swearing. She recovers just in time to blink back the panic that threatens to escape. “How would you know?”
She pouts the question to me.
“Because, sweetie, my eyes are everywhere and I can see you.”

“Yeah, I know,” she says in her best Valley Girl voice, “that’s ‘cuz we’re like, identical twins.
She and I actually look almost nothing alike. She has blond hair, blue eyes and skin so fair that she can spend an entire month in Hawai’i and come home without a tan line. I have dark brown hair, brown eyes and olive colored skin.

“Dah-yum, girlfriend, you’re right,” I agree, hitting myself on the forehead.
(Note: The first syllable in the word “dah-yum” is emphasized and is executed on a slightly higher note that then slides into the “yum”.)
“Muh-mee! You’re not supposed to swear!” she admonishes me.
“I didn’t.” I say defensively.
“Yes you did. You said the “d” word.”
“No, “damn” is the “d” word,” I correct her. “I said “dah-yum”. It’s okay to say “dah-yum”.

My daughter struggles with this distinction for a bit and then asks for an explanation.
“Damn”, I explain, “is an angry word. “Dah-yum” is not. As in, dah-yum that was good! Or Dah-yum that’s funny! Or plain ‘ol dah-yum by itself when you’re just speechless with surprise. It’s sort of like a verbal exclamation point.”

She tries it, but the “dah” gets stuck in her throat, and the “yum” jumps out in a hiccup.
“No, no, no. It’s dah-yum.” I repeat.
She tries again. This time she gets it backwards and the “dah” is a lower note than the “yum”.
I repeat it for her again.
She breaks down laughing. She laughs so hard that she’s crying.
“I am so telling all my friends,” she laughs.
“What?”
“I’m gonna tell them all that my mother is trying to teach me how to swear!”
And then I start to laugh too, because her interpretation of our conversation is so “dah-yum” funny.
Someday, she will probably hear me swearing. Someday is not today.