Ocean City

We decided for our family vacation to get a beach house this year. Mel and I are both beach people (from Planet Sandusky), so we figured it would be worth it to get a place for a week and just laze about on the beach. We did this for our honeymoon, as well. The problem with our honeymoon was that it was in Florida in late June, and the weather was stupid hot and crazy humid. Also, we didn't have a cute little boy to entertain us then. At least that any of you know about.

We started looking around at the websites and found that the most affordable places with the least amount of Guidos on the East Coast was Delaware/Maryland. The beach houses in Mass, which are much closer, are ridiculously expensive, plus you can't really count on the summer weather here. This is my 7th summer here, and each one is pretty different. Last year's was pretty rainy and cold, so I didn't want to get stuck paying a huge chunk for an abysmal week on Cape Cod.

At first, we tried to get some friends to go in on a house with us. Around February/March, we had a group that was interested, but when it came time to sign the dotted line, everybody had commitment anxiety. I was disappointed, and didn't think we could afford a place on our own. I figured we'd wait until the last minute and lowball all the available houses for the week we planned on, and that's exactly what I did.

2 weeks before our trip, I went online and found all of the available properties near our price range and emailed them all, asking if they would be willing to negotiate. Most people came back with 50 or 100 dollar off deals, which wasn't nearly what I had in mind. I had overestimated their despair, meaning that the owners were obviously not as desperate as I was hoping.

However, one of the owners of a 2 BR condo, very close to the beach, gave me a 250 dollar discount, which barely squeezed into our budget. We snapped it up and sent them a check. It was in Ocean City, Maryland, 5 blocks from the Delaware border. Ocean City is more of a beach city than a beach town, with large blocks of apartments and condos set up from beginning to end, in contrast to the beach towns of Delaware. I would prefer the beach towns, with the less-crowded beaches and less riff-raff and all, but it just wasn't affordable for one family by itself. Ocean City turned out to be a pleasant surprise, as it was almost entirely families. Although it was crowded, we visited a Delaware beach and found that it was equally crowded, so no big loss there.

When we arrived, it was obvious that we were paying for the location. This place wasn't exactly luxury, featuring some 70's decor, a 13-inch TV, old leather couches, and A/C units in every room. The kitchen was redone and updated, but that was about it. The building was this sad-looking brick affair, in contrast to the brightly-painted stucco buildings surrounding us. It was a little disconcerting at first, with Mel and I looking at each other with these "Can we be happy here?" expressions on our faces.

Then we walked to the beach. 74 paces from our building, and we were on soft sand. After that, it didn't seem to matter that our place was old, and we just adapted to the firm beds and covered the cheap leather couches with blankets. (Is it just us who hates leather couches? They're hot in the summer, cold in the winter, stick to your skin, what's the appeal?) It also didn't seem to matter that we tracked so much sand inside.

From there, it was just beach, beach, beach. Our regular schedule was this:

7AM - Hendrik wakes us
8AM - After feeding Hendrik and watching his beloved "Special Agent Oso", we put him down for his morning nap
9-10AM - Hendrik wakes up and we make our way to the beach, which only takes a couple of minutes.
10AM-noon - Hendrik crawls up and down the beach, making friends, double-fisting sand into his mouth, crying when the waves get too loud, and smiling at the camera. Everything he touches turns to sand. He's the King Midas of sand. King Sandus?
Noon-2PM - Mel takes Hench back to the condo for lunch/nap. I stay out on the beach to body surf, do crosswords, eat grapes and Cheeto's, drink Gatorade, and soak up the rays. Mel volunteered to go back to the condo mostly because she likes to take breaks from the sun and she's a peach in general.
2PM-4PM - Hendu comes back out with his Mom for more of the same (see above).
4PM-8PM - Dinner/naps/showers/bottles/Phineas and Ferb
8PM-11PM - FREETIME FOR MOM AND DAD!!!! YESSSSS!!! FINALLY!!!!! (Usually we just watched a movie and went to bed early.)

Below are the pictures of our fun, mostly of Hendrik, of course. He is easily the cutest of us, although Mel has her moments.

Peering out from behind the castle that somebody else made.

"Ladies, ladies, ladies! There's plenty of me to go around!" Hendrik made friends everywhere.

These toys entertained him for 5 minutes, tops.

"Nice guns, Daddy!"

More attention, more friends. These folks we sat next to all week. As most people were there for a week (Saturday-Saturday), we pretty much recognized everybody by the end.

He loves his shoulder rides.

Don't ask what I'm doing in this pic, but Hendrik's smile was so cute I had to include this pic.

Trying to get out of the pit I dug.

Being cute. Easier than it looks.

This looks like a Far Side cartoon. "Water, water!"

"How many times have I told you, young man!"

We went to this place called J/R's, The Place for Ribs. I love ribs, so we tried it out, and it was delicious. I gave Hendu my rib bone once and he gnawed on it like a dog for 10 minutes. Turns out he loves ribs as much as I do.

This is the only good thing that came out of a overpriced trip to Nathan's.

Family Picture!

A week before our trip, on July 24th, the Carnival came to Whitman. They set up in the baseball fields and there were fireworks planned for 9:45. We kept Hendrik awake for it.

Ferris Wheel!

Spinny Thingee!

The carnival in its entirety. Pretty small. We didn't actually do anything, just walked around like cheapskates watching everybody spend their money on puke-inducing rides and games for crappy prizes. Mostly we were killing time waiting for the fireworks. I still had a lot of fun soaking in the Americana of it all. Hot, sweaty summer night, all the town folk out, smell of cotton candy, popcorn, and BO, cheap rides built in the 30's, teenagers trying to look cool, I loved it. I'm not being sarcastic. Seriously, I'm not. Why does everybody think I'm making fun of everything all the time! The fireworks went off at 9:45 and they were decent for a small-town production. The best part was that we could walk to the park to do all of this, and therefore didn't have to fight traffic or deal with parking or anything. Hench was scared by the loud booms and was too tired to enjoy anything.

One last happening: Hendrik was crawling around our room and found a "fun-size" Reese's underneath the bed and somehow got through the wrapper before Mom noticed. Here is the result:


He's never been happier/prouder of himself.

Hendu Hijack

I kept waiting for my lazy parents to get off their rumps and post about the big trip to Idah-er and Ut-er (forgive my Boston accent, I lived there when I was young) a few months ago, but you know that's never going to realistically happen. My parents are about as motivated as a 3-month old (take that, 3-monthers! Oh, to be young and foolish again...) on welfare when it comes to blogging. They probably won't even check the blog in the next month, so I can rip on them as much as I want.

Anywho, this was my SECOND plane ride in my life, which means I'm already 19 years ahead of my dad, whose second plane ride was going on his mission (which he won't shut up about btw--yes Dad, we get it, you can speak Polish. Get yourself a cookie. While you're at it, could you mix up some pureed yams and rice cereal for me? Thanks, you're a moose!). I was all set to whine the whole way, but Mom took some Dramamine and gave me some second-hand style, and I was out! The flight out was whine-free from my side, a feat I'm not particularly proud of. You win this round, Mom.

We arrived at Great-Grandma Ann's house in Twin Falls, Idaho, right around 1:30 AM. Dad was complaining about it being 3:30 AM Eastern Time, but what isn't he moaning about nowadays?

The next few days we spent running from place to place, my parents constantly shuffling me around. I got my deserved attention from the various aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and why shouldn't I? Have you seen me lately? I'm delicious! Seriously, check out these pics of me in action:

A bath in Great-g'ma's sink

Hangin' with Gramps

Sweet Aunt April - much nicer to me than Mom

Test driving a 2010 Jeep Wrangler. Couldn't find where the ignition was

A forced picture with my embarrassment of a father

Another forced pic

They wouldn't let me eat the flowers!

You're boring me with all the details of the reception, Auntie.

Look how tall I am! Rah!

A rare moment of fun with Mom

Hey, ladies! Over here on the grass!

You look like an interesting fellow, what's your name? You smell like mirror, though.

Havin' fun with a big stuffed dawg

Didn't exactly want to touch the carpet, know what I'm sayin'?

Help!

Forced to take a nap during the recepsh.

Say what you will about Dad's stank, but the man can tango.

Man I look cute here!

Great-Grandma rocks! Nnnneeehh!

After a few rousing days in Idaho, we drove down to Utah to visit Dad's side. You can tell they're all pretty desensitized to cute babies, as the fawning and adoration was down a few notches from Idaho. You can't blame them, I'm the 521st grandchild on that side, I'm just happy if they remember my name.

All my uncles and aunts at Joe's. Danged if I can remember them all.

Sittin' tall on Aunt Paula's counter

Hangin' with Camille, or as I like to call her, Camiracle.

Another pic with another Great-grandma! I look pretty cool here

We had a pretty good time in Utah, and my parents even ditched me for a day to go up to Park City. Talk about offended! JK, I totally needed a break. Mom was getting pretty naggy and Dad's stink can get to you after a while. LOL!

My cuz Drew was helping me break out of the exersaucer.

Good times!

Discussing economic policy

4 generations of handsomeness

Get used to this sight, Ma, flanked by women

Below are some videos that I'm not particularly proud of, but I don't mind looking foolish in the name of a good laugh:

It's great to be home again, back in the familiar crib with my favorite toys and gadgets. I don't want to get sappy here, but a few tears of joy crawled out my eyes when I saw my trusty mat. I don't want to ever be parted again! Well, at least not until I'm sick of it.

Until next time, signing off!


-Hendrik aka Hendu aka Henchman aka Henduriffic aka The Cutest Boy in Whitman

Video killed the Radio Star

I think my cousin Drew and I are going to be really good friends...

And check out what I'm learning to do...

The True Cost of Candy

Making money has always been a quest of mine. I've mentioned before than my yearly income was 10 dollars, 9 bucks net (after tithing), a year. I got this money from my grandma, inside some card applicable to my age/interests. I usually chucked the card without barely looking at it and admired the check inside. 10 DOLLARS! The world is my oyster!

Mom would take us to the grocery store when we didn't have school. We would head straight over to the toy section whilst Mom bought her boring food items. We would admire the plastic swords, the rubber balls, etc. But that only lasted for a few minutes, as the toy section at Macey's is pretty minimal. After that, it was sneaking candy out of the bulk candy section, and then walking down the aisles looking for Mom.

Sometimes we were lucky enough to go to Kaybee toystore in the mall. That place was like Willy Wonka's as far as I was concerned. All those action figures! All the lego sets! Matchbox cars! Basketballs, footballs, sports stuff galore! It was impossible to figure out where I wanted to spend my 10 dollars. It had to be a good enough toy to last an entire year.

One year I bought a Lego set. You can't get a very big lego set for 10 bucks. I usually put it together in a day or 2, then tried to make other things with the same set, but it always ended up being a house or a building, nothing cool like a plane or a helicopter. I quickly realized that Legos lost their appeal pretty quickly for me.

Then one year I got Gibby for Christmas. Gibby (who my mom called "Gibson") was my first stuffed animal ("stuffedy"). He was a lion with a big long tail. He was pretty big, too, a lot bigger than the hand-me-down crap stuffedies we got from our siblings/neighbors/gutters. Brian got himself a hippo he named "Blab" and we started playing endlessly with them. Mostly sports or wars. After that, we started to spend all of our income on stuffedies. I started accumulating lions, and Brian hippos.

Me with Gibby, Brian with Blab, Kurt with Mikey (who was worthless), and Heidi with her crap stuffedy just trying to be included

We outgrew the stuffedy phase around age 10ish and I became focused on one thing: candy. I needed candy, and I needed it always. We didn't get an allowance in our house, instead, we were paid in candy bars. If you did your job every day that week, you got a candy bar. If you cleaned your room every day and made your bed, you got a candy bar. If you mowed the lawn you got THREE candy bars. Natch, we fought over who got to mow the lawn, because you could just knock that out in one day. The everyday jobs were the tough ones. Almost nobody cleaned their room or made their bed, that was pretty much impossible.

The problem with the candy bars is that even if I did everything, the max for candy bars was 5 per week. In what universe is 5 candy bars enough for an 11 year old? I'm a growing boy! How am I going to gain any weight without stuffing my face with enough Starburst to put a racehorse to sleep?

Lucky for me, the neighbors needed a babysitter while we were "off-track". For those of you who didn't have year-round school (pretty much everybody), we got a month off in the summer (July), and then 3 weeks off at 3 different times during the year. We were usually track "A", which was the best track, where track "E" was the 2nd best and track "D" kids were the losers. The neighbor kids were also track A, so I watched them for 3 weeks for $1 an hour. The best part about that wage is that I thought I was ripping THEM off. 7 bucks a day to watch Price is Right and Crocodile Dundee I and II? Sign me up! At home, Mom was making us slave our free days away with menial tasks and "character-building" activities, making us learn and junk. If we wanted to learn, we'd go back to school! And the only TV we could watch was the morning PBS shows and the afternoon ones. In the morning, we had Captain Kangaroo and Today's Special, while the afternoon shift gave us Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and Barney at the 1:30 slot. Barney was intolerable and couldn't be tolerated, and neither could Mr. Rogers once I got to a certain age, but Sesame Street was always entertaining. Today's Special was fascinating and creepy at the same time, and I always couldn't bear to watch when Jeff got switched to a mannequin or back to a human via his plaid hat. Haven't I already discussed this on the blog? I feel like I have.

Anyway, watching PG-13 movies taped off the TV at the neighbor's while making filthy lucre was my idea of a good time. And I could take that money and ride my bike over to the Fruit Stand. However, I discovered that the Fruit Stand was robbing us blind with their 50 cent cans of pop and 40 cent candy bars. If I rode my bike the mile down to Storehouse or Macey's, I could get candy bars for 25 cents each. How could they afford to give away their candy for practically nothing?! How were the employees not buying out all the candy as soon as it hit the shelves?

Mom wasn't a big fan of me spending all my money on things of no lasting worth. So these trips had to be done on the sly. The easy part was getting the candy; the hard part was getting it into my room so not even my brothers discovered it. I wasn't worried about them ratting me out, I was worried about them stealing my loot. Once, my buddy Joel and I had a particular gluttonous trip to Macey's, not just stopping at candy bars. We raided the bulk candy section and bought a couple packs of Old Home donuts. Usually, I would jam the candy in my pants and walk in through the back door and scurry up the stairs whilst the unsuspecting Mom toiled away at her piano lessons. But these donut boxes were too big to fit in my Toughskin-brand jeans, so I climbed up the apple tree, jumped on the roof, and then snuck in through my bedroom window. No one was the wiser!

The problem was getting cash in my hands. I would get paid via check, which would require Mom to take me to the bank and put it all (minus 10 percent) in my savings. I couldn't just say "I'd like 50 clams back, please" without Mom giving me the stink-eye and a lecture about saving money. So I had my millions (probably around $150) in the bank, but I couldn't get to it. So one day I noticed one of those withdrawal forms. It needed a signature, so I came back another day on my bike (on a day that I was ditching school, no less-this was in Jr. High) and forged Mom's signature after practicing. The teller, who happened to be in my ward, wasn't fooled, and ended up calling my mom. Busted! She told me to come home right away because I was in big trouble, mister!

When I was about 14, I got offered some employment from my Teacher's Quorum advisor. He owned a packing company, and if I could make it down to his warehouse in S. Provo, I would make 5 bucks an hour. 5 bucks an hour!?! And you're sure this is legal, right? This kind of money doesn't come around every day. Pretty much my job required taking a stack of folder papers and adding an insert. For about 4 hours every day after school. After about an hour of this drudgery, I realized that 5 bucks an hour was not NEAR enough money. I quit after a few weeks, realizing that some jobs were just not worth the pay.

So I decided on a new career: dishwashing! We had an "in" with the owners of Magleby's, and they hired us on at 4.25/hr. Now you may think that dishwashing is pretty much as low as you can go on the employment chain, but I would point you to the packing plant. Dishwashing was a pleasure cruise compared to the packing plant. In fact, I loved it so much that I picked up extra shifts as much as I could. The fact that everything I wore reeked to the heavens and my hands had 2 new cuts every day didn't stop me. I even got a few of my friends to work there, Baldwin, Jonny, and Andy. It became a big party.

After about a year of that, I turned 16. Big Judd from the ward had purchased 5 Buck Pizza in Orem, and he said if I got a car, I could get a job as a delivery boy. Not so fast there, Big Judd. I'm very happy in my current career. How much did it pay, I asked. 5 bucks an hour, plus tips. Well, I'd gotten a raise to 4.75/hr, so the 5 bucks wasn't that great. How much are the tips, usually? About 40 bucks a night for a 3 hour shift.

Where do I sign?

Thus began the beautiful friendship. I bought a buttermilk-colored 1985 Toyota Tercel with poo-brown trim. Then I just sat in my car for 3 hours, drove around with pizza, and collected my tips at the end of the night. I even got paid 75 cents for each delivery for gas money! Then the summer came and I got a day job as a lifeguard at the local country club where the sun was always shining, the food was free, and the women ran rampant. Add that to the 50 bones a night I was making and it pretty much goes without saying that I was living large. After a full day of basking in the sun and cruising around town, I'd go to Macey's and get drunk on Shasta and high on candy. Baby Ruth's were always on sale at 4/1.00. But this fast lifestyle came to an abrupt halt. I was fooling myself not thinking it would ever catch up to me. One snowy night in January it did, and I got in an accident. Dad forbade me from delivering pizza ever again. He paid the 1500 in damages to the other driver, as my insurance didn't cover "commercial delivery". I had to work it off that summer.

How, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. He made me help him with his computer program all that summer for 5 bucks an hour. That meant I had to go into his office at 8 AM, which might as well be 4 AM for a 17 year old boy wasting his last free summer ever toiling away at dead-end jobs. Of course, the irony is that I learned how to program, then I wrote my own program for pizza restaurants, sold it to 20 different 5 Buck Pizza franchises, and paid my way through college with that. It also got me my current job, because we all know my slacker GPA wasn't getting me any great jobs, but running my own company did.

Now? I still buy candy by the truckloads. I went to Costco and bought a box of 72 Snickers. It was gone in a couple of months. I bought 3 boxes of Tangy Taffy (now Laffy Taffy) online. Cost? 80 bucks. I have a slice in my budget carved out for this. Tithing, mortgage, utilities, candy, food. In that order. One month we were low on cash so we substituted Twix for hamburger. Nobody noticed or complained.

I only have one regret: my teeth hurt.

Swears

Mom and Dad, you'd better not read this post. This is a fair warning.

Growing up in Orem, aka Family City USA, aka Happy Valley, aka The Highest Percentage of Mormons Ever Assembled Since 1847, life was good and clean. The biggest problem was the consumption of caffeinated sodas, but that was stopped by the Prohibition Act of 1988. That opened up a whole new bootlegging industry, but that's for another post.

This one is about swears. In Orem, especially at the Hansen household, I grew up not knowing what swears were. In fact, at my house, you couldn't say the following words:

Butt
Crap
Shut Up
Fart

And you sure as fetchin' HECK couldn't say any swears. And, for some reason, there was no punishment for saying the wrong words. No soap in the mouth and no swear jar. Us kids had no problem with this, because we had appropriate substitutes (in respective order):

Rump
Grunt
Be Quiet
Bep or Big G

Most of you are familiar with the first and third on the list, and I'm not going to explain number 2 (I swear I didn't do that intentionally), but the fourth? You deserve an explanation.

I'm not really sure where Big G came from. I just know that when somebody tooted, the rule was that you said "Excuse me" to all offended parties. When nobody claimed a certain stench, Mom would say, "Who had a Big G?" Thinking about it now just cracks me up.

Once, when we were driving to Salt Lake, we saw this G on the mountain in Pleasant Grove, just like the Y in Provo. So us little kids, probably 6 of us crammed in the carpeted back section of the station wagon (no seats and certainly no seat belts back there), saw it and enthusiastically yelled, "THERE'S A BIG G ON THE MOUNTAIN!!!!" and laughed all the way to Salt Lake about it. Then, on the way back, right when we were just about to forget about the impossibly hilarious Big G on the mountain, we saw it again and renewed our laughter. Our parents probably had been wishing that we'd never connect our euphemism with the actual Big G.

I'm not entirely sure about the origins of "Bep", either. I know my brother Brian invented it, but I'm not sure how. All I know is that when he said it, it just felt right. It was a great word, and it quickly replaced Big G as the main euphemism.

Because we were so well-trained, I never used those words. Although there was one time when my older brother Craig was playing us twerps in basketball, 3 on 1 with a mini ball. Craig was about 15 at the time, and we were 11, 9, and 7. He was having a horrible night and then, after he'd missed his umpteenth shot in a row, he took the ball, punted it about 563 feet in the air, and yelled, "gosh-DARN it!!!". We twerps looked at each other with quivering lips, as if we'd just witnessed a stabbing. "Is this what it was like when Bambi died?" we asked each other. The terror of that moment made me that much more committed to a Life Without Swears.

That changed. When all the kids in 3rd grade were saying "butt" with impunity, I felt left out. If I said "rump", I'd look like a fool. So I just avoided it altogether. But sometimes, you HAVE to say it. "Where's that sticker?" My friend would ask. "Oh, it's on your...", I hesitated, just like when you know you're about to do something wrong, "...BUTT." "Oh thanks."

Can you imagine what would've happened if I would've said "rump"?

Friend: Where's that sticker?
Me: Oh, it's on your rump.
Friend: My what?
Me: Your RUMP.
Friend: What's a rump?
Me: You know, what your grunt comes out of.
Friend: My what?
Me: Your grunt.
Friend: What's grunt?
Me: It's like a Big G, but in solid form.
Friend: Like a what?
Me: YOUR RUMP IS YOUR BUTT!!!
Friend: You call this a rump? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Hey everybody, guess what Kent calls a butt? A "rump"!
Entire School: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
Me: BE QUIET!! EVERYBODY JUST BE QUIET!!!
Entire School: What does "be quiet" mean?

Can't you just imagine? Of course, this scenario must have been avoided at all costs. So I quickly learned to say "butt" at school and "rump" at home. It's obvious now that although "butt" is not really that profane a word, it's what the experts call a "gateway swear", a swear that will lead to other, much worse swears, possibly leading to a lifelong addiction of profanity.

It's true that my willingness to say "butt" led to my first actual swear. We were in the 4th grade, preparing for the 4th grade play. We would go over to the Jr High to use their auditorium. I was a "Royal Dancer" for a meaningless 2-minute scene that got 40 kids a chance to get their names on the program. Then the rest of the time I would sit in the chorus and sing all the dumb songs we had to sing, like "Lavender Blue", for the 5 billionth time. It was worse than singing time in Primary. Well, we got bored of it and snuck into the bathroom, where we did Gosh-Knows-What in there for hours. Finally, Miss Nelson got word of it and burst into the bathroom, which was dark because we were telling ghost stories or something. She yelled, "ALL OF YOU BOYS BETTER GET BACK INTO THE AUDITORIUM OR YOU'RE GOING TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE!!!" and then left. I whispered to my friend:

"She's an @#*"

The moment it fell off my tongue I regretted it. First "butt" and now THIS? I was on the slippery slope. I repented immediately. And by repented, I mean I didn't tell anyone and showed no remorse.

Fast forward to the end of 7th grade, my first year of Jr. High. I was quickly becoming a nerd, despite my best efforts. I was in the Math Club and was in Algebra whereas most of my peers were in Pre-Algebra or that lower math class for the incredibly popular and stupid. My dad was the bishop, and all my siblings were Perfect Children. I didn't want to be the goody-goody or the nerd. That wasn't going to get me noticed by certain girls. I wanted to be the Bad Boy. I had to do something drastic. I need to start saying swears.

At first, it was just awkward, forced, and ill-timed. I'd say something out of context, like "I think that kid is a dang" just so I could swear. I tried to keep it to the mild ones like heck and durn until I mastered them. I was sure that I'd never stoop to the fetch level.

Even though I'd pretty much started on my own, I started spending time with a certain someone in my neighborhood, let's call him Tyler Fudd, who swore so much that even the bishopric knew about it. He was reckless with his swears, saying every which word at any which time with such eloquence and diction, it was as if Mr. Darcy had begun a career as a rapper. I learned from him, taking actual notes and asking him later what certain words meant. "Oh, I can't tell you that," was his reply.

This summer also coincided with other devious activities, much worse than swearing. But this isn't a confession of PT's. But by the end of the summer, I had mastered the art of cursing like a sailor, and was proud of it. I couldn't wait to go back to school and start dropping swears and watching the girls swoon.

I was the best at keeping it quiet. Even though my aforementioned devious activities were discovered by my parents (and I was appropriately punished, mind you), the swearing wasn't. I wasn't doing bad things anymore, but I could still be a bad boy by appearing bad and rehashing my devious activities at opportune times. But when I got home, I was never in trouble as long as my grades were up and my chores were finished. I checked my mouth at the door.

Once, however, I was playing basketball with my brother, Brian. I was playing miserably and missed shot after shot (why is it always basketball?). Somehow, I let a swear get out. "Dang-NAB it!" It was easily loud enough for him to hear. He confronted me about it in the kitchen. "Do you swear, Kent?" "That's the only word I say, I promise! Don't tell Mom and Dad!" He then gave me the scornful eye, but he never squealed.

I slipped! I was losing my edge. Then, one Sunday in Teacher's Quorum, Br. Parker taught a lesson on swearing. I swore (yukyuk) I would kick the habit. I started keeping track of the swears I said each day and tried to beat that record. It took a few months, but I got so good at it that I completely stopped swearing, even when I was angry.

I'm not sure when I started swearing again. I think it was sometime after college. I moved to Boston, and everybody here swears, even at work. ESPECIALLY at work. I'll be in a meeting with the partner and f-bombs will fly. Well, I'm not proud to say that I've picked up the durn and heck words again, and occasional bigger ones, usually involving road rage or pain. And definitely basketball. I think I'll need to start counting again, but I don't know if that will work because I say "dangit" under my breath so often. Maybe we could start a swear jar. Because when I would watch my soccer coach get upset, he would cuss and I was always proud that I never heard my parents swear. So I'd like to think that Hendrik would be proud.