Incredulous Snort

One of my favorite expressions is: Bullshit. It is direct, to the point, emphatic and leaves no doubt about one's opinion of a situation.

My ancestors were straight-forward folks who called a spade a spade. None of them were prudish. I doubt they ever exhibited patience for those who were and would most likely be the one's saying, "Get on with it man. What's your point?"

Uncle Ernst enjoyed toying with the "dainty people", as he called them, who use a lot of euphemisms. I remember the day when pretty Miss Elsie referred to a cow's father and Uncle Ernst replied: "Oh, you mean Kathy's father, Leroy?"

"No. N-n-n-o," she stuttered. Her porcelain skin turned a mottled red and her blue eyes skittered nervously over every object in the room with her gaze resting briefly on every person except Uncle Ernst. "What I mean to say is the animal, the ah . . . cow . . . well, what I mean is the cow's spouse . . . . "

Uncle Ernst asked innocently enough, "Her father? Or her husband?"

Elsie's hands fluttered nervously. "I'm not sure they were married so you can't say for sure that it was the cow's husband. It was a Jonathan."

"Jonathon? But I thought you just said that he was of the cattle variety, not human. So now we have the fellow's real name, Jonathon. And his last name is . . . ? "

More blood rushed to Elsie's cheeks as she tried to explain. "It is an animal. A gentleman cow."

Uncle Ernst's eyes twinkled. "Oh! You mean a bull. Why didn't you say so, my dear?"

Referring to a gentleman cow's latrine duties doesn't have near the impact of the short and straight-forward: Bullshit. Sure now and wouldn't I have shells in my mouth if I tried to use any other vocalized expression of this feeling, this state of mind? For such by any other name is still the same.
Incredulous Snort © 2006 Chaeli Lee Sullivan