Goddamn

While riding as a passenger in a car the other day, I was jarred by an unexpected speed bump and exclaimed "Goddamn", as I am (at the least) wont to do at any significant provocation. The driver bit my head off for it (exclaiming "That didn't hurt you!"), apparently forgetting for a minute what decades have passed since the 1950's when nobody except auto mechanics (like my father) ever said bad words. I'm not in favor of teaching "bad language" to children, but anybody who can drive a goddamn car is way too old and experienced (I would have thought) to try to crush me for that particular sin. I have to admit that I'm an extremist. I cuss a lot and I do so emphatically, most especially when I'm alone or think no one's close enough to hear me rant. But I wonder about the driver's statement that the sudden bump "didn't hurt" me. True enough. But the truth is that the only way I could avoid such neurotic automatic responses would be if I were someone else or if I were taking powerful pills (don't I take enough already?) for my nerves. I would need some pretty serious dope. I don't like to be startled! I am pretty constantly tensed up in expectation of some surprise, pain, or shock, whether it be an expectation of pain in my back from leaning over to pick up objects or the fear that objects I need to move will be too heavy or the dread that a four year old boy will rush at me in fun and knock me off balance and onto my ass! Don't laugh--when his older sister was young, she knocked me down in just that way and it was both difficult and embarrassing to get myself picked up again. You may think those fears are pathetic; I certainly do--but it's the condition my life's been in for a few years now and I don't know how to fix it so that I couldn't possibly offend someone's sensibilities. Well, I could kill myself, but surely no act of Harikiri is required here! If there's a problem, just bugger off, and let me do the same!