The man in the grey van pulled alongside me as I made my way across the parking lot. The permanent plates on my rental car said otherwise, but I was a visitor here, at the end of long and horrible day. I was currently lost for the 857th time in a twenty-four hour period, and the near-miss I’d just had with the van while I was searching out a street sign was the last in a long series of delights not mentioned in the travel brochures.
I walked on, staring straight ahead; color me paranoid, but engaging in conversations with angry, van-driving men who follow me into dark parking lots does not qualify as a tremendously smart safety move.
He continued to glide along next to me. “F—ing can’t-drive whore bitch from hell,” he added.
I still refused to counter, preferring instead to close the incident with the wit and class befitting my station as a refined young Catholic lady (I flipped him off and he roared away) and the opportunity was thus squandered: I had passed on the open invitation to heap scorn upon this man’s mother.
Minding his mother
His mother, of course, was nowhere to be seen. I don’t know the woman. I do, however, know something about the horrifically vitriolic nature of her son. In American society, that’s usually reason enough to unleash a torrent of insults at the lady in question. No one would have blinked if I’d informed him in less than polite terms that he was a child of illegitimate birth and the offspring of a female dog.
I suppose mothers are fair game because we’ve reached into our Freudian roots and assume it’s more cutting to attack a man’s mother rather than the man himself. Used to be that accusing a man of homosexual tendencies was the worst you could do, a practice currently fading from acceptability (and rightly so). It’s still perfectly acceptable, however, to go after Mom.
Why no fatherf—–rs?
Perhaps the woman deserves such ire, if she really has neglected to raise a proper gentleman; but what of the boy’s other parent? Not to turn this into a whole Gloria Steinem thing, but: Why are there no fatherf—–rs out there?
When my gentleman friend wished to express his displeasure with me, he had a bevy of personally directed insults to choose from. He called into question the frequency of my sexual activity and whether or not I charged for it, my place of origin, and the lasting effectiveness of Bick’s Driving School.
There are plenty of nasty names for women. And for men, there are… more nasty names for women.
The high road
I say let’s give mothers a break and get a little more creative with our insults. Or maybe we can not insult each other at all. After all, mom always taught us to take the high road.
So the next time your quarterback throws a pass into the waiting arms of the opposition, don’t immediately curse out his mother. After all, his dad is the likely candidate that taught him how to throw.
That SOB.
Here we go again. Like I said, I’m a classy broad. As your mother would say-watch your mouth.