Remembering My Montana Mom: Swearing and Angel Food Cake

Received a text this week marking the one-year anniversary of my Mom's passing.  A year already?  Feels like a week, with so much happening in that time.

As my mind wandered through lunchtime, I remembered that she almost never swore.  Even when something went wrong, she controlled her language with substitute words.

Either Mom or an aunt gave me this lesson against cursing that reads like a philosophical argument:

Premise 1: You are an intelligent person.

Premise 2: If Premise 1 is true, then you have mastery of the English language.

Conclusion: If Premise 1 is true and Premise 2 is true, then you can use better vocabulary than swear words.

If you think you can refute this, be my guest.

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The Angel Food Cake

So how does cursing connect with an airy dessert?

It was a day long ago when I was a kid.  Mom wanted to serve angel food cake during a bridge party.  She purchased a cake mix from the grocery store and baked it according to the directions.  But the cake fell in the pan, losing all the fluffiness as she brought it out of the oven.

I was watching TV when this happened.  She may have said "Dang it."

She went back to the grocery store, bought another angel food cake mix, returned home and tried again.  The second cake fell in the pan.

"Oh FUDGIE!" she exclaimed.  "Fudgie" was a word Mom used because she was a lady and she didn't want her sons swearing.  Had to set an example.

Mom returned to the store, bought a third angel food cake mix...

It fell in the oven.

All graciousness left her.  I don't remember exactly, but I think her response was "Oh SH#&!!"  I knew right then and there to stay quiet and stay out of her way.

So there are circumstances where spontaneous cussing can be forgiven, such as hitting your thumb with a hammer, stubbing your little toe on the furniture (did that last night) or the kitten deleting the article on the computer.  But if you can't get through two sentences without an F-bomb, you don't qualify under the argument above.

BTW, the bridge club ladies got cookies.