#@!&##%

But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. Mark 6:4

Apparently this little proverb applies to writers as well as prophets. I can attest because getting my family to read Speedster has been like pulling teeth. Some are easy. My wife, cousin, and two sisters-in-law, for instance, were early readers and supporters. They even talked me up—said things like once they got started they couldn't put it down etc. You'd think statements like that would get more family members motivated to give it a try. Not so much.

Language might be part of the problem—that and my decidedly irreverent spin on things. Many in my family are devoutly religious. They home school their children in order to shelter them from the kinds of things I write about. Knowing that, I can hardly expect them to download the very stuff they are guarding against directly into their homes. Still, you'd think they'd be at least a little curious.

Now, to be fair, I have pointed out to them by way of forewarning that parts of my book, especially any dialogue involving the characters Dwayne and his boss Earl, are liberally peppered with F-bombs and scatological references. I know that people really talk this way because I have worked for people who talked this way. I've had more than one boss who thought nothing of standing hard working and dedicated employees up against the wall without much provocation and yelling obscenities at them until the paint peeled around them.

In addition, a great many of my 'mommy blogger' acquaintances talk that way in their blogs. They are perfectly lovely young women with small children, who write about their day-to-day lives, managing their familial obligations, and dealing with husbands who seem to grow more useless and ignorant at an accelerating pace. They talk about these things like drunken sailors. It seems to be a requirement to get in one of the many 'mommy blogger' clubs.

A certain amount of unseemly language is essential to disagreeable tasks. I know, for instance, that it is impossible to repair an automobile or perform rudimentary plumbing without cussing. Should raising small children require any less? I don't think so. I've done some of that too. It's certainly stressful, often painful, and almost continually icky—just like plumbing. I'd say cussing is a job requirement for mommies, and on that basis, I think F-bombs and vulgarisms ought to be an accepted norm of expression. If you're thinking, 'What would Jesus do?' you should bear in mind that Jesus didn't have small children…or plumbing.