I Swear. Apparently.

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“You said a bad word, Daddy!” Miss8 accused me tonight.

All heads in the kitchen turned to glare at me and I quickly reviewed my last few sentences in my head.

There was something about the fridge not being cold enough and moving my tally into the freezer and how much I dislike hot beer. But, despite the seriousness of the issue at hand, I was pretty sure I kept it clean.

My next step was tricky. Ask what she thought I said, and risk her teaching her younger siblings a new rude word? Or go for complete denial and quickly move on, and have her just saying it anyway and teaching her younger siblings a new rude word?

Either way, class would be in.

“What do you think I said?” I asked her.

“You said that fridge word,” she almost whispered.

…pause…

“…yes?”

“And you know what that means…” she continued.

“I thought I did,” I told her.

“You know,” she encouraged me, “you added I-N to the end.”

I played with this in my head for a while. Fridgin’?

“Do you mean fridget?” I asked her. I had to go back about twenty years to find that word. Which begged the question. “How do you know about being fridget?” She’s only eight!

Well, I quickly got my answer.

“What’s fridget?”

Oops.

“Never mind,” I said. “Let’s get back to this word of yours.” I did some more thinking. Quick thinking. “Do you mean friggin’?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said, like she couldn’t believe it took me so long to get there.

“Dad!” came the cry from Master10 and Miss11. There were other frowns as well.

“I. Didn’t. Say. Friggin,” I told them.

“Dad!”

Okay, well I did that time. And anyway, friggin’ is the word we say when we don’t want to swear. Right? I thought back to my simple wish for a cold beer. Suddenly, I had it.

“I said we might have to take the fridge in to get looked at!” I explained to my family.

“Dad!” yelled Miss8. “You said the bad word again!”

No wonder I friggin’ drink.

“Raising a family on little more than laughs”

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1 Comment

  • Haha! You’re showing your age. See if you were old enough you would know that the word is a substitute for a much naughtier word. But you must be below the 60 age (sheepish grin from me), as you probably use as it a replacement for ‘damn’ or ‘stupid’. First time I used it as a teenager, in the 70’s, my mother almost fell off her chair. She very quickly informed me that no matter how I meant it, older people would think otherwise, so I wasn’t to use it again. :)ps I had to teach myself to say freaking when my mother in law came to live with us .

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