During my glorious carefree fun filled college days I claimed, on paper anyway, to be a biology major and I somehow managed to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in biology. A B.S. in Biology, the B.S. part is accurate and somewhat fitting as I had intended on becoming a forest ranger and spending my days moseying around the woods analyzing various forms of animal droppings. Now as an athletic trainer I mosey around gymnasiums and football fields waiting for athletes to drop. B.S. is in just as plentiful a supply at a sporting event as it is in the forest, it’s just being produced and expelled in a different format.

Sometimes what we set out to do or be isn’t what we end up doing or being. For instance, my brother had dreams of one day performing on Broadway. He would dance fervently around the house, dancing and dancing until he would collapse in an exhausted heap, his leotard soaked with sweat. Then one fateful day while dancing he slipped on a stray Lincoln Log rolled his ankle and was never the same. With his dreams of Broadway so cruelly and violently ripped away he sold his leotard and leg warmers and became a lineman.

Since both my brothers are lineman feel free to create a mental picture of whichever one you would find most entertaining dancing around in a leotard. I find them both entertaining and as their older brother I’m confident that I could convince both of them to slip into a leotard.

B.S. got me thinking about B.S. and the other words and phrases we use to express ourselves. For example “Son of a biscuit” is a phrase I refuse to use for various reasons. First of all, as a quasi biology major I do not recall ever studying the reproductive system of a biscuit which makes me question the validity and accuracy of the statement. Since I wasn’t the most attentive student it is entirely possible that I missed that chapter or was absent the day we went over the biscuit reproduction system and had biscuit dissection lab. If that is the case I apologize for my ignorance.

What would the son of a biscuit be? A crouton? An oyster cracker? Secondly, I don’t use that phrase because I believe if you’re going to curse, if you want to curse, if you need to curse then don’t dilly dally around with the low-fat diet version. Spit out a mouthful of the real McCoy. Always full flavored, always satisfying. When you smash your thumb with a hammer and, “Oooh snicker doodles!” just doesn’t cut it reach for the tried and true. This message approved and funded by Cursers of America. We swear by it.

Cursing is an art and like all art forms some people are better at it and more fluent in it than others. Like any great artist you need to know what to use, when to use it, and how much is necessary. That is where many go wrong and give cursing a bad name. I like salt but too much of it can make you cringe. The error those people are making is that they are not taking their audience into consideration. Like an artist who paints portraits of hamburgers and steaks to sell at the PETA convention they just don’t understand the wants and needs of their audience. Don’t understand or don’t care.

Properly used, cursing, can make you feel better, get your point across in fewer words, and provide some level of entertainment to those around you. Unless of course the curse is directed at those around you which of course is the beginning of an entirely different scenario that may find you with a fist in your curse emitter. If you’ve been wanting to give cursing a try start with muttering obscenities to test the waters. Start low and grow is what we teach here at the Cursers of America Academy of the Arts and What Not.

Speaking of B.S., cursing, and muttering obscenities, I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and the box of chocolates you got didn’t have too many of those chocolates filled with that nasty orange marshmallow substance.