{"id":1638,"date":"2014-04-21T21:23:21","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T04:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/?p=1638"},"modified":"2014-04-21T21:27:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T04:27:13","slug":"curses-for-cures-or-lalochezia-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/21\/curses-for-cures-or-lalochezia-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Curses for Cures, or Lalochezia in Action"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kuse<\/a>
Kuse muuntajaan! (Finnish for ‘May you piss into a transformer!’) Yeah!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lent is over, folks, which means I can revert to my standard vocabulary of shameless profanity… but not before making\u00a0a little contribution to the scientists\u00a0at the TGen Foundation<\/a>: A whopping $169.<\/p>\n

It’s a new record for ear-bleeding Lenten penance.\u00a0I smashed my previous personal worst\u00a0of $160 on Easter Eve when I was stirring my roux and hot grease spattered onto my middle-finger (natch), prompting a textbook example of lalochezia<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”<\/p>\n

Yes, I said it five times… in a row… and yes, my finger felt better afterward (especially when I was showing everyone the wound)… until the blister broke during a 13-mile hike on Easter morning, and I soothed myself with a hearty: FUCK!<\/p>\n

By that time, it was too late, I’d already amassed enough profanity to cover the costs associated with about 2 percent of a human genome, based on estimates from the National Human Genome Research Institute (roughly $7,000 in 2014)<\/a>. At the very least, I hope my vulgarity could cover\u00a0part of the water and sewage bill for the researchers’ bathrooms at 445 N Fifth Street in Phoenix<\/a>… because, well, researchers need\u00a0clean places to poop, too.<\/p>\n

As I ease back into the filth-infested waters of linguistic licentiousness, I find it takes a little getting used to:\u00a0I choke on the words that\u00a0want to spill from my mouth, and after 40 days of more-or-less clean living,\u00a0I find myself searching for more pleasant replacements. I even bought a book so I could be more creative in my cursing:<\/p>\n

\"Take<\/a>
Take that, you budak monyet bodoh! (Indonesian for ‘stupid slave monkey’)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After all, if there are no Armenians around, who could be offended when I unleash a very special, “Krisnera zhazh tan vred!” on unsuspecting eardrums? The answer is, anyone who knows anything about rat ejaculation (provided I could pronounce it correctly – How To Swear Around the World<\/em> does not come with a Hooked on Phonics<\/em> 8-track.<\/p>\n

And speaking of 8-tracks, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge\u00a0Paul Poirot and Charles Sangerhausen, two college friends who spent the past 40 days and 40 nights lobbing earworms and right-wing screeds onto my Facebook feed. Who can forget Jefferson Starship – <\/a>We Built this City<\/a>?<\/em>\u00a0The entire Hall and Oates catalog?\u00a0The greatest hits (and fax campaigns) of the Tea Party Patriots? And finally, the\u00a0Barbie Girl<\/a>\u00a0ditty that makes the\u00a0Awesome song<\/a> from the Lego movie sound like a rock anthem? (Don’t click the links… don’t say you weren’t warned). For\u00a0easily adding about $40 to the final count, I give you lads a sincere: Thanks, assholes!<\/p>\n

If you would like to contribute to the cause (ahem), please make your donation of any amount (say, $169) right here<\/a> – and be sure to include #cursesforcures in the comments.<\/p>\n

I’d also like to thank the\u00a0few, fearless friends who joined me on this journey\u00a0of\u00a0personal improvement: Kathy Kudravi, Stephanie Stanley, Dale Childress, David Vispi, Tara Richards and Kat Lange-Richards. I’m sure our co-workers, friends and family members are grateful for this interlude of polite conversation, instead of our standard\u00a0loop of carpet-bombing f-words.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the big explanation: Why the fuck am I doing this?<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m neither Catholic nor catholic in my religiosity. I do celebrate the hell out of Mardi Gras, so I think that 40 days and 40 nights of trying to do right by my vocabulary is a small price to pay at $1 per violation (and my co-workers thank me gratuitously for it).\u00a0\u00a0In three years of celebrating a curse-free Lent (or at least attempting to celebrate it), my potty mouth has\u00a0spayed and neutered three shelter dogs and provided toiletries for a homeless shelter.<\/p>\n

This year, I wanted to sequence a genome in honor of my friend Troy Richards.<\/p>\n

Troy\u00a0is, without question, the toughest son-of-a-bitch I know. The scientists at TGen have had a hand in saving his ass multiple times from the ravages of adrenal cancer — and their work with him\u00a0has translated into new treatments for other patients. They are doing ground-breaking research that might well save your life one day… and they’re doing it in a state that has no qualms about launching anti-science legislative turd-blossoms every January in the Arizona\u00a0senate.<\/p>\n

So we didn’t quite sequence a genome, but in temporarily curing my tongue of the cancer of profanity, I’d like to think we made the world a slightly more delightful place to live.<\/p>\n

And if not:\u00a0Jiao nisheng haizi mei pigu yan!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lent is over, folks, which means I can revert to my standard vocabulary of shameless profanity… but not before making\u00a0a little contribution to the scientists\u00a0at the TGen Foundation: A whopping $169.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1647,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patandstacy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}