Awe, crap!

Since I’ve been diligently running three or four times a week, I’ve felt a lot better about myself. It’s not that I think I’m fat and that nobody likes me, although that may be the case. I just feel like a lazy bum when I don’t do some physical activity in my schedule. So Monday morning I ran around town, including through part of Kiwanis Park. I like to run on the grass because it’s a lot softer than concrete, and it reminds me of when I used to run cross-country, back when I was actually in shape. So I ran across the grass and had a nice run. When I got home I stretched out a bit and read the comics. As I was getting ready to get in the shower, I smelled something . . . pungent. *Sniff* “What’s that?” I wondered. Then I looked down at my shoe, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “Awe, crap!”

I was indeed right, that’s exactly what the smell was coming from. I had stepped in dog poo sometime during my run, probably in the park. I didn’t even bother trying to clean it off just then, and I just threw the shoes outside to deal with later. Although it was definitely annoying, I guess it was kinda funny in retrospect. It reminded me of a similar moment with Phoenix and Kassidy. We were coming back to my apartment from somewhere and we had been eating Hershey’s Kisses in the car. Phoenix dropped one and thought it had fallen to the floor, and since he was driving he decided to look for it later. But when we got out of the car, we discovered that it had fallen between his legs and he had been sitting on it for the last fifteen minutes, and it had left a nice brown streak on the car seat and on the seat of his pants. He got out and looked at the car seat and looked at his pants and said . . . yep, you guessed it. “Awe, crap!” Both Kassidy and I looked at him and looked at the car and laughed so hard I thought I would follow suit.

I don’t actually like the word crap that much. I try not to use it very often, but it’s such a useful all-purpose word that I sometimes can’t help myself. Crud is pretty nice, and I’ve started to use that more often, but sometimes crud just doesn’t cut it. I think it’s important to have a few words handy for especially trying situations. If I say everything permissible on a regular basis, then when I bang my thumb with a hammer or slam my head on that annoying kitchen cupboard door, then the word that will come out of my mouth won’t be “crap,” although it’ll probably have four letters. So in order to avoid unnecessary profanity, I keep some good pretend-swear words in reserve for those moments. That’s why I try to avoid using “crap” too much: to save it for more worthy situations. Like when I find out that I stepped in it and tracked it around the house. Now that is crap-worthy.