It's Writer's Workshop time at Mama Kat's Losin' It!. Today's writing prompt I chose is about swearing in blog land - how do you feel about it?

I still remember the first time I dropped the F-bomb. I was seven and my baby brother was just a newborn. I was one of those kids who somehow gets through the first five or six years of life without hearing the big kahuna of swear words, then gets to school and it's like, wait, what are they saying? I also took the bus with a bunch of juvenile delinquents from Dorchester so I heard it at least 40-50 times on the ride home from school every day.

Anyway, after school one day I was playing in my brother's room and he was laying on his tummy time blanket or whatever babies do, who knows, right? And I thought about my new word. And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to say it.

"Fuck," I whispered. I waited a few minutes and God didn't smite me so I got a little bolder. "Shit. Fuck!" I said out loud. (I'm not sure why I said "shit"...I guess I figured I'd already broken the seal so I might as well go all out.)

I felt chills all over. Not only had I sworn for the first time ever, but I said the worst words. I had butterflies in my stomach and ran to the bedroom door to make sure no one heard me. No one except my infant brother - the first incident in a steady parade of me being a good influence on him.

Fast forward to now. Times have changed and I know I swear too much. My little brother is 23 now and swears like a sailor and I take some of the credit blame. I try to keep it minimal, especially around coworkers and family, and I think I do a pretty good job of that. But there are some situations that just bring it out in me. Driving is really bad for the potty mouth. Drinking, obviously. Any time I get mad, sad, excited, or bored. I've tried to go a day without swearing before. I've never succeeded.

I do try to keep my blog fairly clean just because I don't know who reads it and I don't want to be screwed over by the content I choose to post. Then again, I do know it's read by adults. Adults who, presumably, use a foul word or two and have certainly heard and read those words. I'm not corrupting babies anymore. We're all grownups and we've all said the F word. Let's not get hysterical here! So, yes, the occasional cuss word makes its way into my posts and that's not likely to change.

I don't get offended by bad language, certainly not when it's used in a context that's not intended to be hurtful to someone else. I know not everybody is as lenient about it as I am but I'm always shocked when people are genuinely bothered by hearing a curse word. I understand there are always alternative words you can choose...but really? This is that upsetting to you? How do you deal with watching the news or going out in public?