Running with Scissors

Sara Peterson-Davis has worked as a newspaper researcher and reporter, as well as a communications director and consultant. She and her husband, Monty Davis, can be found in Liberty, Mo., keeping their two children from running with scissors. Contact Sara

Potty Mouth

by Sara Peterson-Davis

I’m not a particularly prissy person but there’s something that’s been bothering me.

What in the world could it possibly be? Well it may seem silly, but it’s the way the word “pee” is popping up in television advertising.

I know. Of all the marginal language used on television these days, I’m uncomfortable with a three-letter one? I can’t help it. When I was growing up we could announce that we had to: go to the bathroom, go number one, go numero uno, go potty, go twa-twa or go pee wee, but under no circumstances could we just plain pee. It was considered a rude, crude and socially unacceptable term.

Hey, I didn’t make the rules back then. I just suffered under them.

The closest either my sister or I came to using the “p” word was when my then 16-year-old sister got up from the lunch table and asserted her teenage independence by announcing that she “had to go whiz.”

I thought it was a rather novel, if not melodic, way to communicate the situation. It was the 70s after all and things were changing. Unfortunately, our parents were not revolutionaries. That day I witnessed two people come completely unglued.

What followed was a 15-minute informative review of all the bathroom euphemisms that were forbidden in the Peterson household. Well you can imagine all the colorful possibilities, a couple of which started with the letter “p.”

Anyway, grown-up me was working in my very own kitchen a couple of months ago when an advertisement came on the television for a home pregnancy test. In a big slightly sarcastic tone the announcer proudly stated, “It’s the most sophisticated piece of technology you’ll ever pee on.”

I laughed, but, at the same time, I felt like a line had been crossed. It wasn’t a good line either. I mean didn’t the advertising copywriters get the same lecture I did? Maybe they heard the abridged version.

Then a few days ago, another commercial came on for these little toy puppies that need housebreaking. On the commercial, a little girl asks one of these leaky little puppies, “Do you have to pee?”

Now, I’m not so naïve as to think that people don’t use the word every day. I confess I’ve been known to use it on occasion. There are really few words that get the point across like that one. But television has a way of giving the green light to things like nothing else can. Frankly, I’m not ready for people to start “peeing” all over the place.

Next thing you know that will be the word of choice. I’m sure they’re already doing it, but I’m not ready for Oprah to announce she has to pee or those ladies on The View or the Today Show gang, my family or complete strangers for that matter.

Where will it stop? If that “p” word doesn’t convey the message, there’s at least one more that will do just as well.

Call me a “p” word if you will — like priss or prude. But when it comes to this opinion, I just had to relieve myself.

Whew! I feel better already.

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