Full transparency here folks, I will let you know right here and now that this particular post which I’ve lovingly deposited in my own little corner of a vast series of networked computers and servers found its conception not just 18 months ago when the cacophony of rants and run-on sentences appeared in my OneNote, but about 40 years ago where my conscious memory reports my first exposure to a certain word. 

Whereas I’m not going to commit that word to print here in my own little corner of a vast series of networked computers and servers, rest assured you will know what word I’m talking about. 

That’s just another characteristic of the verbal brilliance you experience here ladies and gentlemen.  I can talk about a word and not say it, yet you the reader will know exactly which word I’m discussing.

Quality is job one.

Now that the carnival barking is complete and the table’s been set, let’s move on.

Two particular events come to mind when it comes to reflecting on when that word was introduced to me.

The first one didn’t involve the word so much as it did the gesture.  At some point in third grade in December during art, the gaggle of malcontented Gen Xers in which I belonged were directed to trace our hand onto construction paper, cut it out, and then curl the fingers using a cool trick with a pencil.  The hands with the curled up fingers were then to be stapled to the bulletin board in a fashion to resemble a Christmas tree.  Looking back on that event now, I’m wondering what useful life skill that provided for the generation which would most likely be behind loosening FCC standards around profanity and nudity on broadcast networks.

I have a very specific memory of Steven R. curling all of the fingers on his cut-outs, save for the middle one and then brandishing it at several of his colleagues while Mrs. H wasn’t looking. 

Just a few years earlier, Steven had showed up at my door one day and invited me to go play at the school playground.  When we arrived, he produced a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and proceeded to light one up and smoke it with an impressive level of experience for a 6 year old.

In the end, I came out of Christmas that year and into the subsequent new year knowing a particular gesture involving the middle finger could be considered an aggressive and vulgar statement.  I just didn’t know what it really meant.

Fast forward a year and now I’m in fourth grade.  My favorite movie had been released that previous summer and I had started following the NFL more consistently that season.  As such, I was most likely ensconced in either Star Wars or Broncos gear on any given day of the week. 

At one point, someone mentioned the word ‘hump’.  I was in the hallway outside of class discussing it with Robin F. trying to find out what it meant.  “I know what it means, but I can’t tell you.”  Robin announced.  Robin was a sweetheart, but obviously not very helpful in my pursuit of an expanded lexicon.

Having overheard the conversation, Marcus B. joined the conversation.  “I know what it means.”

Now ladies and gentlemen, I would expect that all of you out there in real life can recall the names of the biggest troublemakers, and worst influences which have passed through your formative years in roles that were more than that of a non-player character.  If you don’t recall the names of said individuals in your lives, then you’re most likely one of those people. In my life during those years, I had Todd S., the aforementioned Steven R., and Marcus B. 

Marcus appeared in my life around 2nd grade when his family moved to town from Germany or some other trouble making, European hot spot not known for producing well-mannered children.  The kid was quick to develop lasting relationships with the disciplinary committee at any of the schools he attended.

When we were 11, he was responsible for me running face first into a brick wall on a toboggan.  Eight years later while in the USMC, Marcus and a couple of buddies visited a bar where yours truly and a couple of my buddies were celebrating my birthday.  The newly trained Marines were all fired up and ready to start some trouble with anyone who looked at them sideways. 

In all honesty, Marcus spent more time trying to diffuse that issue and keeping his asshole friend from laying waste to the mouthy, soon-to-be purveyor of verbal brilliance who had been compromised by the fish bowl margarita he was consuming with a three foot long straw.  Even still, that doesn’t keep my confirmation bias about him from kicking in whenever I recall that incident.

Back to that day in fourth grade, Marcus had announced that he knew what the word ‘hump’ meant.

“What does it mean?’  I had just activated the Notes app on my smartphone and was ready to take some notes.  I knew I would get a straight answer from this kid.  He was one of the colleagues that his neighbor and good friend Steven R. had brandished the middle finger made of construction paper to just a year earlier.

“It’s when someone [dirty-word’s ] someone else.”  He then walked away without standing by to make his vast reservoir of colloquialisms available for follow up questions.  Poor Robin F.’s eyes widened upon hearing the description and evacuated the vicinity as well, leaving me more dumbfounded than I had been five minutes before.

Okay, I now had a new problem.  I had just learned yet another word on top of the word ‘hump’.

I now knew that the two new words I had collected in the space of an hour were synonymous.

I didn’t know what either one of them meant. 

Based on all of the level setting I had done with Marcus B. over the years, I knew that he wasn’t emotionally invested in his education.  As such, it was pretty much understood in class that if you were going to copy off of someone’s paper, said paper shouldn’t have the name ‘Marcus B.’ at the top of it.  At the same time, we all knew that Marcus was light years ahead of the class in profanity.  That meant that if you learned a new word from Marcus B., you would be doing yourself a favor to keep it to yourself and not let it escape your piehole in an audible manner.

I wonder whatever happened to Marcus B.

Maybe he got that job with the FCC after his stint in the Marines.