I scream "F@#%" for ice cream.

I said, "fuck," in front of a 4-year-old today.  I always feel bad when I accidentally swear in front of kids, but the parents, to their credit, almost always act like it's not a big deal.  It's probably incidents like these that cause all my "friends" on Facebook to vote that I'd be a terrible father.  Or maybe it's the heavy drinking.  Or general bad attitude.  Whatever.

Point is, this time, it was over an orange cream-sicle.

I was at the park with a couple friends, one of whom brought his 4-year-old kid with him, which makes sense, since it was a park.  The ice cream truck pulled up, and the dad of the kid in question really wanted an orange cream-sicle, but he was worried about whether or not there was dairy in it, because he's following a diet that doesn't allow him to eat any dairy. 

I, on the other hand, don't give a f--. . . er, don't care whether I eat dairy or not, so I bought one and decided to eat it.  As I was unwrapping it, the dad of the kid began asking for a bite.

Normally I'd be okay with sharing, but in case you'd like to know the secret rules I live my life by, here's one now: you're not allowed to not buy ice cream because of your diet and then ask me for a bite of my delicious orange cream-sicle.  It's against the rules.  Anyway, diets are based on what you eat, not what you pay for, so dairy is dairy whether I pay for it and then you eat what I paid for, or if you pay for it yourself.

So, I said no a few times, and he persisted, and finally I closed the case with a definitive, "Get your own fucking orange cream-sicle."

As soon as I said it, I realized I'm not supposed to say fuck in front of kids, so I said I was sorry.  I was disappointed in myself, after having carefully spelled P-E-N-I-S out loud earlier while discussing a previous weekend's Scrabble triumph.

"Don't worry about it," the dad said.  "He probably hears swear words all the time."

Then, I enjoyed my orange cream-sicle as I walked home in the sun.