A final outburst of profanity closes the book on Halloween

Two women who were screaming insults at one another woke me up from a sound sleep at 2:45 a.m. on Nov. 1 when they decided they had walked far enough following their Halloween revels, so they might as well stop and stand directly in front of my house to continue their “discussion.”

The conversation, such as it was, adhered to a strict formula. One of the women used the f word (no, not federalism — the other one), then tossed out a few words that were not obscene. This was followed by the f word, a few inoffensive gutteral sounds, the f word, a semi-sensible remark, the f word, a conversational gambit, the f word, and then, for good measure, several variations of the f word. The other woman then responded in kind, except when she interrupted the first speaker, at which point they hurled the f word at each other in unison.

“I’m high, I’m hungry and I’m tired,” one of the women said in what may have been the only complete sentence she uttered without using the f word. By this time, I had grown tired (so to speak) of this interchange, so I trotted downstairs, flung open the front door, and demanded that the women take their colloquy somewhere else. I did not use the f word, even though I was sorely tempted to do so.

When I dropped back into bed, I was angry, but as I tried to get back to sleep, which took a full 45 minutes, I began to feel sorry for these seemingly lost souls. How were these women raised as children? What opportunities were they denied as kids because of poverty or abuse or neglect? What must their day-to-day lives be like if they’re roaming the streets on foot well after midnight on a damp and cold morning, maligning each other in profanity-laced tirades?

I’m not the most tenderhearted person in the world, by a long shot, but at least this once, some higher angel of my nature won out. Of course, it wasn’t long before my true self emerged once again. As I was finally on the verge of falling asleep, I remember thinking: “It’s nice and quiet now that those two (f word with "ing" suffix) birdbrains have disappeared.”