News & Features » October 2017 » “Fuckitty-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck Part 2: Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit” by Nkosi Ife Bandele
“Fuckitty-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck Part 2: Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit” by Nkosi Ife Bandele
Are you a parent going through the Terrible Twos? Did you live through them and survive? Terrible Twosdays is a place to commiserate over the unending shenanigans of your Darling Children (as the online parenting communities say). Nonfiction stories will be considered, so long as names have been changed to protect the guilty. Inspired by our best-selling gift book for parents, Go the Fuck to Sleep, Terrible Twosdays joins the roster of our other online short fiction series. Unlike Mondays Are Murder and Thursdaze, we’re looking for stories with a light and mischievous feel, all about the day-to-day challenges of parenting. As with our other flash fiction series, stories must not exceed 750 words.
This week, Nkosi’s daughter learns her new favorite word . . .
Fuckitty-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck Part 2: Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit
by Nkosi Ife Bandele
10-year-old
“Shit!”
My daughter’s eyes lit up. My otherwise perfect parent of a wife had cracked something in the kitchen, and her reaction was immediate. She emphasized her “Shit!” with “Goddamnit!” “Shit, Goddamnit!”
As my daughter has thus far proven to be as much atheist and agnostic as her non-believing parents, (my wife and me respectively), damning deity wasn’t nearly as exciting as savoring Shit.
“Did Mom say, ‘Shit!’?
I muffled my response.
Yes, and that’s why you’re all smiles you little Shit!
“Fuck Fuck.” For my daughter, “Shit!” became the Shit.
“‘Shit!’, wow, Mom said, ‘Shit!’, you heard her, right Pop? She said, ‘Shit!’”
I decided to play along.
“Maybe she said, ‘She-it,’ but said it really fast?”
My daughter didn’t follow.
“She-it?”
“But real fast.”
“Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit!”
“That’s my girl.”
My daughter and I both giggled, and for the record I neither asked her to repeat it five times nor loud enough for my wife to hear.
“What’s happening in there?”
I tried to wink at my daughter, but she’s a real Shit, always snitching.
“Daddy told me to say ‘She-it’ real fast, so I said it as fast as I could. Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit!”
My wife, who is dumbstruck daily by my pathetic parenting summonsed me into the kitchen.
“Why do you do dumb Shit?”
My daughter, who figured my wife was reprimanding me, decided to defend me. (Though, her motives clearly weren’t honorable, another excuse to shoot the Shit.)
“You said it first, Mom. You said, ‘Shit!’ ‘Shit!’ just like that. I heard you say it, ‘Shit!’” My daughter genuflected to consider other possibilities. “Daddy heard you say ‘Shit!’, too. Didn’t you, Dad, didn’t you hear Mom say, ‘Shit!’”
I didn’t cop to it. I was already in deep Shit.
“Anyway, Dad didn’t say, ‘Shit!’ He said, ‘She-it’ real fast. ‘Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit!’”
*
When I heard my son enter the apartment after a long day at school, probably in a Shitty mood because of the Shitload of work his prep school gives, I knew Shit was about to hit the fan.
My son, the French honors student, informs his baby sister that the word for Shit in French in “Merde.”
“Merde?”
“No, Merde.”
“Merde?”
“Merde!”
“Merde!”
“That’s better.”
He looked at me and smiled smugly. Shithead!
My daughter couldn’t wait to snitch.
“Hey, Mom, did you know that that word for Shit in French is Merde?”
My wife is African American, Haitian, Mexican, and Lakota. She’s also fluent in Italian. But even though she can say Shit in five languages, she opted to hit my daughter with her gas face. She wasn’t playing that Shit.
Not only did my curious daughter find that some weak Shit, I did too, especially because I was genuinely intrigued as to whether the linguistically advanced Lakota, whose language is largely, and remarkably, comprised of verbs, would stoop to Shit.
My wife refused to answer my specific question (regarding the Lakota) in front of my daughter. She summonsed me back into the kitchen.
“Do you have Shit for brains?”
“So what she say, Pops? How do you say Shit in Spanish?”
I knew, so I said, “La Mierda.”
“Ah, La Mierda!”
My daughter was feeling Shit.
“How do you say Shit in Italian?”
I wasn’t sure about that, so I said some crazy Shit, “Mamma Mia!”
“Mamma Mia?”
My son takes after his mom regarding languages and in generally being sick of my Shit.
“It’s Merda,” he offered flatly.
“Merda?”
“Merda!”
“Merda!”
Now it was up to my wife. I mean, at this point I sincerely wanted to know the Lakota word.
“Hunny, please, I’m serious. I’m not Shitting with you this time.”
My wife would’ve even look at me. She just shook her head, “Nigger always starting some Shit!”
Meanwhile my daughter had moved on to Facetiming her best friend, Nanami who was helping her enunciate Shit in Japanese.
It’s “Kuso” by the way.
***
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Do you have a story you’d like us to consider for online publication in the Terrible Twosdays flash fiction series? Here are the submission terms and guidelines:
—We are not offering payment, and are asking for first digital rights. The rights to the story revert to the author immediately upon publication.
—Your story should focus on the challenges of parenting. Ideally, stories should be about children aged 0 to 5, but any age (up to early teens) is acceptable. Stories may be fiction or nonfiction.
—Include the child’s age at the time of the story next to your byline.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.
Posted: Oct 17, 2017
Category: Original Fiction, Terrible Twosdays | Tags: children, cursing, fiction, flash fiction, Fuckitty-Fuck-Fuck-Fuck Part 2: Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit-Shit, GTFTS, Nkosi Ife Bandele, short fiction, Terrible Twosdays