My dad taught me how to swear when I was just seven years old. We were driving home from the dump on a bumpy country road in his old Dodge pickup truck, me sitting on his lap steering while he worked the pedals, sipped a cold Schimdt’s beer, and smoked a Marlboro. It was awesome. I couldn’t have had a better swearing coach. My dad was the quintessential man’s man—a mechanic and an avid hunter with a wonderfully naughty and raucous sense of humor.
“Shit,” my dad muttered under his breath after hitting a bump in the dirt road, knocking the ashes from his lit cigarette onto the floor of the truck.
“Shit,” I repeated, emulating him without thinking. I don’t know why I said it. I just kind of repeated it mindlessly the way my grandmother’s creepy parrots did. Immediately, I realized I had just said one of those bad words that I’d heard in the rap songs coming from my brother’s room. I panicked.
Surprisingly, my dad thought it was hilarious. “Well, look at you,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. Say it again.”
My eyes widened. Was this some sort of trick? But I decided to risk it. My squeaky voice shouted, “Shit!”
He laughed. I continued. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit!”
I was swearing like a grown-up and it felt fantastic. I don’t know if it was just because of my swearing or the slight buzz he must have had after downing a few cold ones, but my dad was in hysterics. “Great! Now try saying ‘fuck’!”
“Fuck!” God, this was fun.
“What other ones do you know, Rocky?” My dad always called me Rocky, I’m guessing because I must have reminded him of Sylvester Stallone.
I thought for a while. “Well, I know ‘shit.’ And ‘fuck.’ And ‘poop.’…”
“Well, there are a bunch of other good ones, kiddo. I’ll teach you. But you have to promise me that you’ll only say them when you’re with me.”
“Forever?”
“Until you’re older. When you become a man, then you can swear whenever the hell you want.”
My dad must have known that a boy like me—sweet as pie and round as a cupcake—would most likely need some form of self-defense to get through life, so on that day he became my Mr. Miyagi of cussing. And to this day, thanks to him, even though I have the eyebrows and poise of a prize-winning beauty queen, I have the mouth of a road-hardened trucker.
He taught me that there is an art to swearing and, much like a chef mixes ingredients to build flavors, one can combine multiple obscenities for optimum effect. From then on, instead of a limp-fisted attempt at throwing down, I’d escape the wrath of bullies long enough to get away with a clever, “Go fuck yourself, you ball-fucking, shit-wiping, ass-cocking shit-fucker!”
You’d be shocked at how well that works. Much like martial arts or a credit card, however, one must use such unsavory language sparingly so as not to go overboard.
Even with my arsenal of swear words, it wasn’t exactly easy growing up as me in Mount Vernon, Washington, a community too big to be considered a small town, but too small to be considered an actual city. Don’t get me wrong: it’s an absolutely lovely place full of kind-hearted people and an idyllic Main Street with brick sidewalks lining shops that sell charming items like windsocks and shotguns. With bragging rights that include exporting more tulips than Holland (put that in your wooden shoe and smoke it), Mount Vernon is also the hometown of some notable celebrities: actor James Caviezel, better known as Jesus from The Passion of the Christ, right-wing political commentator Glenn Beck, and…yours truly. Sing it with me, “One of these things is not like the other…”
Since I moved away in 1998 (about thirty seconds after graduating high school), an Olive Garden and a drive-through Starbucks have been built not far from where my mother still lives in the house where I was raised—a charming three-bedroom, two-bath rambler she and my father bought in 1978, a year before I came sashaying out of her uterus.
My mother worked as a bookkeeper at Mount Vernon High School, the very Mount Vernon High School where I once graced the stage as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (the lead role!) and sang in Synergy, the student jazz choir (very Glee, very ahead of its time). My mother is responsible for the delusional self-confidence that has made my career in the entertainment industry possible. Throughout my childhood, she was effusive with her compliments. Without fail, she would be the first to shower me with praise, always cheering, “You are amazing. You did wonderfully! You sing beautifully!”
Although she had the best of intentions, she may have been just a bit biased. Mother, I love you, but I’ve seen the VHS tapes of my performances, and although even Helen Keller could see my energetic passion, I was just okay.
If it’s the job of older siblings to torture the younger ones, then my brother Eric—four years my senior—deserves Employee of the Decade. He was a total a-hole to me back then, only ever paying attention to me long enough to steal the remote or maniacally gloat over his Mario Bros. victory. Even the way he beat me up was evil. He would make a fist and extend the knuckle of his middle finger just a bit so it made a pointy spike, ensuring that the bruise on my arm would be a slightly darker purple in the middle. To this day, I rarely wear purple, which is a terrible shame, since it really makes my eyes sparkle.
I kind of hated him growing up, but we get along very well now. In retrospect, I totally understand why he picked on me. After all, until I showed up on the scene, he was the star of the show. And then, all of a sudden, here came this annoying Judy Garland version of a little brother and he was expected to just go along with it?
My brother’s taunting aside, I was very blessed to be a part of a family that embraced my uniqueness. My parents didn’t bat an eye when I performed my rendition of the entire score to Grease in a backyard Broadway spectacular or when, instead of asking Santa for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for Christmas, I asked for a Cabbage Patch Kid…three years in a row…until I finally got one. His name was Randy, he had curly brown hair, and he was a Libra (just like me).
I was smart enough to know, though, that asking my parents for a Barbie doll was pushing it. So on my eighth birthday, after unwrapping yet another GI Joe, I improvised, leading to one of my greatest childhood discoveries: Play-Doh makes a fabulous miniwig in a pinch!
Adorned with perfectly sculpted heads of long, luxurious Play-Doh locks, my brigade of Joes was transformed into a bevy of Janes. With the addition of my one-of-a-kind haute couture toilet paper dresses, I single-handedly created Mount Vernon’s tiniest drag revue ever. Not to brag, but my resourcefulness is rivaled only by McGyver (note to self: pitch McGAYver as a show idea to Bravo).
Eventually my makeshift, low-budget Barbies didn’t cut it, so in order to afford the real deal, I had to get a job. I entered the workforce the summer before I turned thirteen and haven’t looked back since. I loved working and felt very Christina Applegate in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Kids, if you haven’t seen this criminally underrated gem, do Uncle Ross a favor and Netflix it ASAP. You’re welcome in advance.
Because Mount Vernon is a town rich with agriculture, pretty much any kid could get summer employment working in the fields. So, for my very first job, I ended up picking spinach for a local farm alongside half the population of my middle school.
Day after day I would haul my pasty, chubby, prepubescent body out into the fields, separating the male and female spinach plants to prevent pollination. I was like a “crop cockblocker.”
Little known fact: male spinach plants have tiny yellow balls, and if you don’t remove them, they will knock up the girl spinach plants…or something like that. To be honest, I don’t really know—I barely know how it works with people—but they paid me $4.25 per hour to do it, so I didn’t care.
Nearly two months into my career as a teen produce sexologist, my mind ripe with thoughts of a swelling bank account and fantasies of soon-to-be-purchased school clothes and glossy magazines of my very own, I was bitch-slapped by my first dose of outright homophobia.
Here’s how it went down: Halfway through a long day of hunting for veggie testicles, my small group of spinach castrators and I were ready for a break. I stood up to stretch my back for a just a moment, when a shout echoed across the field. It was a phrase I’ll never forget.
“Move your ass, faggot!”
I turned around to see my crew boss staring right at me, with a look of obvious contempt. He couldn’t have been older than nineteen, but to me he was just a grown-up authority figure shouting what I still consider one of the worst words anyone could ever use. Sure, I’d heard that word before, but now that I was almost in my teens, I knew what it meant. I just stood there, dumbfounded. And then again, “Did you hear me, Ross? Move your ass, faggot!”
I’d like to say I took a “glamorous pause,” but in truth, I was paralyzed, frozen in the hot sun. I didn’t understand. I mean, he couldn’t possibly be talking to me. Me? Not to the boy whose mother calls him, “Momma’s most perfectest little angel face.”
It was the first time in my twelve young years that I really felt the force field of my parents’ love being shattered by the very real hatred and bigotry that exists in the world. I had absolutely no clue how to react.
I don’t even remember that guy’s name (let’s just call him “Homer Phobe”), but I’ll never forget his face. In fact, every once in a while I have a daydream about picking him out of a lineup like they do on reruns of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. He steps toward the one-way mirror that protects my anonymity and Mariska Hargitay instructs him to repeat the phrase, “Move your ass, faggot.”
I nod sheepishly, recognizing the subtleties in his hostile tone. “That’s him.”
He’s then grilled by Christopher Meloni in a very dramatic prison cell scene. Next, after a commercial break, the jury erupts in spontaneous applause as I walk through the courtroom doors and take the stand to testify against him. My lawyer, Ryan Gosling (don’t ask, it’s my fantasy), and I masterfully recount the disturbing details and bring the truth to light. And as the jurors deliver their guilty verdict, my once-hardened assailant sheds his gruff exterior for the first time, comes to his senses, and silently mouths the words, I’m sorry.
Holding back tears with my head held high, I bravely commit an act of true empathy by looking Homer Phobe directly in the eye and slowly—very slowly—whispering, “I…Forgive…You,” while Christopher Meloni nods in approval and Ryan Gosling gives me a lingering, victorious bear hug.
I’d like to say I handled it with that much class in real life, but I didn’t. At all.
In actuality, I obsessed about what he had said for the rest of the workday. I didn’t even enjoy my lunch, which is saying a lot because lunch was, and still is, my very favorite part of the day (well, tied with breakfast, dinner, and dessert). I was afraid, confused, and angry, but most of all, even at that age, I knew I just couldn’t let it go.
When the whistle finally blew at the end of our shift, we did the usual routine—boarded the rented school buses and departed from the fields. I sat about five rows behind my bigoted crew boss, Homer Phobe, and stared directly at the back of his hateful head. My anxiety grew as each kid before me was dropped off in front of his or her home. When we reached my house, I clutched my yellow rubber boots with my sweaty palm and nervously trudged down the stairs of the bus. Just as the accordion door began to close behind me, I whipped around and slapped my hand against it, holding it ajar.
Before the bus driver could even ask me what I was doing, I lifted my shaking twelve-year-old hand, pointed my index finger at Homer Phobe and stated loudly, for all to hear, in a manner that would make my father beam with pride, “THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE CALLED ME A FAGGOT AND I’M NOT GONNA STAND FOR THIS SHIT! I QUIT!”
Without waiting a single second for Mr. Phobe’s response, I let the bus door slam shut and ran for my ever-lovin’ life.
As I burst through the front door of my house, my mom looked up from reading the paper and asked, “How was work, honey?”
Running past her into my bedroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Except for the smudge of dirt on my cheek, I looked the same as I did when I had left that morning—my round, freckled face darkened by the summer sun. But the change inside me was already evident. For the very first time in my life, I had made the decision to man up.
Smiling at my own reflection, I yelled back to my mother, “Spinach season is over.”
I couldn’t wait to tell my dad.