Bullshit

When I was a kid, I didn’t hear much profanity at home. I had to learn my profanity at school like a good 70’s child. I was always fascinated when I’d come across adults who used “those words” and felt I had been born to the wrong family – I needed cool parents who cursed a blue streak, not my geeky, boring parents. Oh sure, my mom let a ‘damn’ slip every now and then, (and as TW says, she’s grown up to be a woman who can, and does, say FUCK – much to the horror of me and my siblings), and she always seemed shocked at her behavior when that happened. There was one tiny exception to this profanity-free household.

Bullshit.

My father said this. He said it a lot and I believe he learned it from his father since my family often tells about how I said “bullshit pappaw” to my grandfather when I was two – and that I learned the word from him…. In fact he said it so often and not really in the way I was used to hearing profanity used. He said it laughingly, mostly at himself, or if he was teasing someone about something. He still says it at least once everytime I talk to him on the phone.

Bullshit.

I don’t know how or why this tiny little book, On Bullshit, appeared on my library list. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing TW would pick up on a whim. I don’t remember reserving it but I guess I must have. It is here and I read half yesterday because I was too exhausted to read a “real book” and finished it today while recovering from an annoying phone call – a bullshit phone call, actually.

What IS bullshit? You probably know it when you hear it – but maybe not. Some people are good at spewing bullshit and making you believe it’s the honest to goodness truth. On Bullshit was a little dry, a little boring, but also just a wee bit interesting.

On Bullshit … my father’s Christmas gift this year. I hope he likes it.

Technorati Tags: bullshit, nonfiction