"I'm going to wash your mouth out with a bar of soap!"

These were the all-too-common words from the parents of my generation if you uttered a swear word. The belt was reserved for more incriminating offenses.

If we had a little slip of the tongue in my house, the drill was always the same. We were told to go down to the bathroom where my father stood waiting. He'd hold up a full bar of soap, give you a few seconds to let it sink in what you were about to endure, then issue the command:

"Take a bite."

And by bite he didn't mean a nibble, or a brushing across the lips. He meant a full bite. Enough to leave a sizable chunk out of the bar and fill your mouth. The actual punishment would be those few seconds—minutes—when your tormented face revealed how awful it was to have soap in your mouth. I often wonder what would have happened if I made no face at all and just munched away like I was eating a favorite snack. Instinctively we knew that the look on our faces was the real payoff. We didn't take any chances at pissing our father off anymore.

As I mentioned earlier, my father worked at a sheet metal shop back then, of which he would later own. So when he came home he'd have to scrub the grease and dirt off his hands with the most effective product at the time: Lava soap. Yep, you got it. Many times we had to take a bite out of a bar of that raspy—sharp—gritty—Lava soap. Was this supposed to punish us even more, or sand down the insides of our mouths so that no swear words could take hold in there? It was horrible.

I think the word "shit" was the one that got me in trouble the most. I don't remember saying the "f" word, you know, FUCK, that much. Somehow shit sufficed for the minor agonies of a kid. Fuck was more adult-like, for adult-sized problems.

And where did we hear these words? From our parents, of course, during their many verbal and physical altercations. I don't remember kids at school swearing that much. I'd ask if they got the same punishment as we did, though.

"Do you have to eat soap if you swear too," I'd ask.

"Yep" the others would reply.

"How about LAVA soap?" I'd say, taking pride in the extra degree in which we had to suffer.

Kids are often given the challenging task of coming up with suitable swear word replacements, like "darn" and "fudge" and "shucks." I used to play with a spring-loaded metal latch that covered an electrical outlet on the outside of the house. Every time I let the latch snap shut, I would say "shucks." Why I would repeat this I do not know: (snap) Shucks. (snap) Shucks. (snap) Shucks. People must have thought I was autistic.

I swore less often when I got into my teens. Oddly, one day I described something as being "lousy" and was told by my stepmother that "lousy" was a swear word. How on earth can "lousy" be considered a swear word?

There finally came a time when I was too old to eat soap anymore. I was a junior in high school and had started my first job making pizzas at a local restaurant. After a long day of classes, I'd work at the pizza place for several hours, ride my bike back home a couple of miles in the dark, then crash into bed.

One Saturday morning my father grilled me for not having mowed the lawn. He and my stepmother were sitting at the breakfast table at the time. Halfway down the hallway during our verbal exchange, I turned around and exploded out:

"Listen you fucking people, I am god damn tired from busting my ass off at school and work. Now leave me alone."

My stepmother was about to reprimand me, but my father put up his hand to let me finish. I guess I had finally earned the right.

Later that day he mowed the lawn himself, revving up the motor each time he passed by my bedroom window to keep me awake.

Back to Book

(c) 2010 Rook Communications. All Rights Reserved.