Filth Flarn Filth

(forward to 3:00 if you're in a hurry)

I'm sitting at work on Wednesday and my editor is talking about how he gave up cursing for Lent (which means until Easter). He's a good guy, a dad with two teenagers and a pretty good sense of humor, and his idea was to 'fine' himself a dollar each time he cursed. Then he's giving the money to charity or something wholesome like that.

So far, it hasn't really gone as planned.

First, he noticed that he cursed way more than he expected, to the point that he bought a clicker/counter thing from amazon to actually keep track. I think his high so far was 24 curses in a day. That doesn't sound like much, but keep in mind his 'scale' (which I came up with, btw), was to not count words you can say on network TV as curses. I'm pretty sure that's the same standard as in the Bible.

So he can say ass, hell and damn (but not goddamn) w/o penalty. Basically, he's learning he drops more fucks, assholes, dicks, sons-a-bitches, whores, etc., than he realized.

Second, he realized that his swearing goes up when he's talking to me. Apparently I look like someone you can curse at. Or he just noticed over the last few years that I curse. A lot. A shitload, in fact.

The thing is, I've noticed that my foul mouth is rubbing off on people I work with (I realize that sounds pretty dirty, btw). I'm not talking about interns or dock workers or prison guards; I'm talking about PTA moms and softspoken copyeditors dropping some dirty language in regular conversations.

It's great. I feel like I'm leaving my mark on the office. Well, another mark on the office at least.