The Swear Jar

I just got in from seeing a new comedy "Hot Fuzz" at the movies. It's made by the same blokes that did "Shaun of the Dead" if that means anything to anybody. It's good for a laugh and quite well made although the rather manic, almost overpowering way it's shot and edited makes me think the director and editor have watched too many music videos.

I'll spoil one joke because it made me think of of an event at a previous workplace. They have a swear jar - I'm sure you've seen the sort of thing; every time you swear you have to put money in the jar. They even have a scale of penalties for different words and it's written out on a sign with the words censored like this:

P**S - 0.20
S**T - 0.50
F**K - 1.00
CUNT - 2.00

Well, it appealed to my juvenile sense of humour. We had a swear jar in one of my workplaces a long time ago. For some reason, everyone expected me to be paying lots of money into it. I don't know what gave them that idea.

Once the swear jar went in, I stopped swearing altogether. Nary a cent of my money went into it while everyone else was having to pay up on a regular basis. I think they were running a pool on how long I could hold out.

Then came the day when I had to sit through a meetinbg with a real prick of a manager who was being a particular prick that day. Actually, this jerk was the reason I ended up quitting and going into contracting and making lots of money. So I kinda owe him. Anyway, I walked out of that meeting and back to my team area. Someone asked me how the meeting went so I said:

"I'll tell you how," and reached into my pocket, pulled out $5 and put it in the swear jar.

"My god," they said, "you weren't swearing in the meeting were you?"

"No," I replied. "I'm just paying in advance for this explanation: I just wasted two fucking hours listening to the most ignorant fucking cocksucker on the fucking planet talk shit about subjects he has fuck-all knowledge about. And the whole time he has this smarmy shit-eating grin on his ugly fucking face that pissed me off so much I could barely restrain myself from beating the living fucking shit out of him."

"Oh, I see. Is that all?"

"Do I have any swear credits left?"

"I think you're still in credit for two or three swears."

"Good. That fuckwit is lucky I don't go up there and kick him right in the fucking balls."