The Gates of Heck

I thought he was joking.

My coworker, that is.

He was telling me about this electronic device that he wanted for Christmas.  Was hoping that his wife would buy it for him.  Could not wait to unwrap it on Christmas day.

I was kinda sort listening - not really paying that much attention.  I supposed that he was hoping for a DVD player, or maybe a VCR (this being the South, and therefore a tad behind the times) or maybe even an Electronic Fish Finder (this being the one thing that they stay on top of the latest electronic advances in around here).

Therefore, I was a bit surprised when he told me he was hoping to receive some device called 'The Guardian'.  Never heard of it.

"The Guardian?  What the heck is that?" I asked innocently.

Turns out that the "TV Guardian" is an electronic box that hooks to your TV or cable box or DVD or VCR player and purports to remove offensive words.  They even have an option to remove words that in themselves are not obscene, but might be offensive to some people, like the word "God" or "Jesus."  It will even remove dirty words from the closed-captioning devices that make the words scroll across the bottom of your screen if you're deaf or something.

I thought he was joking.  There's no such thing!

Ah, but there is:

http://www.tvforfamilies.com/index.htm

It's a f@$*%n shame! BECOMES It's a shame!
Move your a%#! BECOMES Move your tail!
She's such a b%&@#! BECOMES She's such a nag!
That's b#%*s#%@! BECOMES That's baloney!
Did you two have s@x? BECOMES Did you two have hugs?
J#%&s, you scared me! BECOMES You scared me!
F%!@ you, a&$#%!#! BECOMES Go away, jerk!
Oh, s#!%! BECOMES Oh, crud!

I started laughing, which I think offended him slightly.  I mean, give me a break!  OK, I'm not offended by most dirty words.  As a former Jarhead, I've probably said most of them myself, and more besides.  I used to pride myself on my extensive knowledge of vulgar and insulting statements in other languages besides English!  But I can understand how someone could be offended by foul language.  And turn the channel.  Or turn off the TV.  Whatever.  But a foul-language zapper?

I started going on about this thing - what would it do if you turned to MTV or VH1 when they were doing a rap marathon?  "Dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang, dang" until its little electronic brain fried!

Then my coworker's neighbors started coming over.  Seems they all had heard of the TV Guardian.  They either wanted one - or they already had one.  A couple of them had never heard of it - but now that they had, they wanted one too.  My coworker was handing out the URL with gusto.

Turns out I'm the only one who DOESN'T want to own the TV Guardian.  I'm the ONLY ONE of my coworkers who isn't shocked or offended if someone says "Jesus Christ" in my general vicinity.

I was telling them about once when I was a kid - my parents gave me permission to go to some Bible camp by a Baptist neighbor of mine (we're Catholic).  I was very young, I didn't really understand the difference between Baptist and Catholic, etc.  All I remembered was the bus driver was playing music on the radio while we drove - but everytime an 'objectionable' word was sung, he reached over and changed the station.  We never heard a single song all the way through - and this was AM radio in the 1960's (WLS out of Chicago)!  He spent more time switching stations than he did driving the bus!  I told my coworkers this - not one of them laughed.  They didn't think it was funny - they thought it was NORMAL.

Uh-oh.

I think I'm in trouble here.

Best,

Wigwam 'Help Me, Jeebus' Jones