This is the story of Bryson’s first curse words. Well, at least the words I heard. Since then, having outgrown the innocence of childhood (which means coming to the realization that dad is not quite as omniscient as originally presented), he’s no doubt added many colorful yet profane euphemisms to his verbal repertoire, but knows better than to share such intimate knowledge of these aural perversities within range of his father’s acute hearing.

And that’s OK with me. Selective ignorance is a wonderful thing when used wisely.

Not that I think my boy frequently salts his language with the spice afforded by the English tongue. He is well aware of profanity’s stars (“Now presenting the one you’ve all come to hear, the head verbal honcho guaranteed to add a punch to any expletive, the F word!”), but probably has yet to express them in ways that indicate a knowledge of the word’s intimacies. I say this only because he still remains hesitant to say “sex,” instead spelling it out, criss-crossing the air with is right index finger when he comes to the X. At this point, the habit is more an endearment than anything else, though by the time he is married (in his late 30s, of course), it might be wise to abandon air-spelling and just come out with what you want.

Let us go back to the start of what surely will be a life partially dedicated to exploring the intricacies of the language as expressed when someone cuts you off in traffic.

Bryson was just 6 when I convinced him (promised him enough sweets and swag to keep him interested for an hour or so) to attend a baseball game while visiting his grandparents in Northern California. For me, it was a trip to one of the premier stadiums in the country, an emerald jewel on the lip of the San Francisco Bay. For him, it was a chance to score a bunch of stuff whose cost was inversely proportional to the probabilities he would want to keep it once TV was again available.

We rode BART into the city, Bryson disappointed there was no one selling BART-related Legos on board. Upon arriving in the City (snoblike reference to San Francisco), we disembarked, headed up the nearest stairway and found ourselves among many people apparently unaware of the advantages of bathing. Bryson was disappointed none were selling transient-related action figures,

It was a spotless sunny day, a fastball God hurled right over the plate. Perfect for a game whose outcome takes entirely too long to resolve.

We walked the half-mile to PacBell Stadium, Bryson climbing, swinging and jumping on all objects offering the opportunity, though not designed, for such antics. The urban landscape became his playground, which was fine until he ascended a statue of Willie Mays, making it precisely halfway to the delight of nearby tourists, cameras firing away.

Once inside the stadium, Bryson was much more focused. It was time for stuff. We hit every team shop (34) between the entrance and our seats on the third deck. On prior vacations, the rule was that I would buy him any souvenirs within reason, which he translated to mean “Stuff we could carry between us, as long as one of us was pushing a shopping cart.” A year ago the rule was changed. Bryson had $50 to spend each vacation, a decision that transformed Bryson from Mr. Moneybags to Mr. Totally Tightass With a Buck.

So we browsed. And browsed. And browsed. He finally settled on a two-foot-long souvenir San Francisco Giant bat. It was not surprising given his penchant for wielding blunt objects, but as long as I watched him closely, everything would be fine. Besides, I planned to ply him with enough crap that his hands would always be holding less lethal objects, like caramel popcorn and chocolate malts. And the resulting sugar-fueled euphoria, he would forget all about the bat.

The strategy worked perfectly. The bat was tucked safely away under his seat, which was in the first row of the upper deck. Where a metal railing and six-inch concrete lip was all that kept Bryson from a bat-related tragedy should it slip from his fingers and tumble toward the higher-income masses below.

The thought of such an occurrence made my daddy-sense tingle from the minute we sat down. Every 3.2 minutes, I would say to Bryson, “If you drop that bat, it’s gone. Hold onto it. With both hands. Don’t drop it. Because if you drop it, it’s gone. Seriously.” The warning came as Bryson poured 12 packets of ketchup on his hotdog. As he squirted another 17 packets on his fries. As he dabbed at his ketchup-sodden lap with a napkin.

In between warnings I watched the game as Bryson eyed vendors for upcoming purchase possibilities. I had hoped he was too busy wondering how in God’s name someone could eat a rock-solid chocolate malt with a wooden spoon to listen to the man one row up and three seats over who shared his enjoyment of profanity with every play not in the home team’s favor.

Besides that, it was a perfect day. I watched baseball, Bryson ate, I uttered the warning, Bryson ate. Beautiful.

Until the fifth inning.

“Hey bud, want a pretzel?” I said.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m full.

“What? No, no, have a pretzel. Enjoy.”

“No, I’ve had enough.”

Then it hit me. I was now dependent upon baseball to entertain my son. Oh my God, what have I done?

“How about some licorice? An Icee? I could run up to concessions and get you a Milky Way or …”

“No, I’m done.”

Hands now free of sugar-imbued sustenance reached under the seat and came up with the bat. This called for strident action. The frequency of warnings was increased, as was the decibel level.

Bryson swung the bat back and forth, uttering low humming sounds as if wielding a Star Wars lightsaber. I was OK with this if it resulted in another inning or two of baseball. I returned my attention to the game and, after another half-inning in a very close game, my WPM (warnings per minutes) fell drastically.

My eyes focused on a deep fly ball, I heard something. A sound that did not belong. A clatter of wood upon concrete. As my eyes traveled from field to seats, I heard another sound that did not belong.

“Shit!”

In the midst of turning my head, my concern had shifted from “Jesus, did Bryson just drop the bat, is it now plummeting toward the unsuspecting fans below?” to “What did he just say?”

I stared at Bryson, his gaze meeting mine. My peripheral vision revealed the bat near his feet, but we’d get to that.

“What did you just say?” I asked, pronouncing each word slowly with as much Dadpower as I could muster.

A low, whispery voice answered.

“Sh-i-i-i-i-t?” Bryson said, drawing out the word.

“That’s what I thought. I can’t believe you said that. You know that’s a bad word.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, it happens. And what did I tell you about the bat? Give it to me.”

He reached down, grasped it and handed it to me. He knew he could have made a plea. After all, this was vacation, and Dad was much looser about the rules on vacations. But he knew the “shit” had ended any shot at mercy.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said.

Looking back, it would have been much more of a punishment to make Bryson stay and watch baseball. Actually watch it. And no doubt he never would have cursed in front of me, traumatized by having to watch baseball.

But I didn’t do that, much to my regret.

The next day, Bryson and I went to the nearby water park. No worries about plying the boy with treats this time. Waterslides would keep us occupied all day. The only fear I had was the crowds. The plan was to arrive about 15 minutes after the park opened, early enough to beat most the crowds but late enough so that the line to enter would have dwindled.

“That way we should be able to just about walk in,” I told Bryson as we got into the car. “Plus it’s a little cold still, so I don’t think we’ll see a lot of people.”

“We don’t want to spend all day in line,” said Bryson, who hates waiting in line almost as much as being forced to watch baseball. “That would be a waste.”

“Definitely. But I’m sure we’ve got it worked out just right.”

On the 20-minute drive, we talked about how perfect our plan was. We were smarter than all those suckers getting there too early or too late.

As we pulled into the lot to pay for parking (you get soaked here in more ways than one), only one car was ahead of us.

“See, this is how it feels to have a plan work so well,” I said. “I’ll bet about 15 minutes ago, there were a bunch of cars in line.”

“Yeah, those others weren’t thinking too well,” Bryson said.

“Not like you and I, right?”

“Right.”

The car was so full of smugness, we could barely breathe.

We turned the corner and I could actually hear the hiss of our perfect plan dissolving right in front of us. The line to get into the park blocked our path, forcing me to duck through a narrow gap between cars and park further away. Bryson, busy doing who knows what, didn’t notice.

I stopped and looked into the back seat. I had another plan.

“Hey bud, hop out and go get in line, OK? I’ll park and meet you.”

“Why?” he said, looking up at me.

“Well, the line is a little longer than I thought.”

“What?” He looked out the window and there before him were nearly a hundred people in bathing suits, each holding a towel.

“That’s the line?” he asked.

I nodded.

“God damn it!”

I stared at him, the dilemma clear. Do I do the right thing, having a discussion with him about right and wrong words as well as the proper way to express anger? Or do I tell him to hurry up and grab his towel and get in line?

Since this was the second infractions, sterner measures were necessary.

“Hurry up and grab your towel and get in line,” I said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I have had many low points in my career as a journalist. Such as covering a Colorado high school football game when it was 10 below, trying to keep notes wearing ski gloves that kept my fingers a degree or two above freezing and upon returning to the office had about five minutes to decipher scratchings in my notebook that resembled petroglyphs inscribed by a prehistoric man with really bad sharp-stonemanship. Then there was the time I had to conduct an interview with Norm Macdonald, alleged comedian, while talking to his agent (also on the line) as he was in the midst of moving into a new home. Me--“Obviously things didn’t work out for you on Saturday Night Live, so did you need time to think about your career or did you want to go-“ Norm-“Jesus, hey Chuck, what the hell is my address here, I think I may have sent some stuff to the wrong place.” Chuck – “I’m not sure, look, is there some mail there? Or maybe you can look for a number somewhere outside.” Norm- “A number? What kind of number? Can you please just tell me where the f--- I am?”

But I could actually hear a the distinct scraping sound of my career hitting bottom (much like the sound that must have kept Ben Affleck awake as he made Gigli) when my office phone had not rung by 11 a.m. on a Monday.

Elmo had definitely blown me off.

Yeah, Elmo. Of Chicken Dance Elmo. Limbo Elmo. Tickle Me All The Way to the Bank Elmo. Yup, 2.3 pounds of foam rubber and red fuzz had told me in celebrity speak (refusing to return a call at the appointed time) to take a flying leap. Maybe I could understand if Elmo was an A-list Muppet, like Kermit or Miss Piggy. I could even understand if it had been Gonzo, because he’s kind of flaky anyway and spends way too much time with chickens.

But Elmo? High-pitched squeaky-voiced redheaded fuzzball Elmo? Whose habit of speaking about himself in the third person has worn thinner than Sesame Street’s relevance?

The publicist had given me a choice. I could talk to either Grover or Elmo in connection with an interactive health-related exhibit opening here soon, since it featured several Sesame Street residents. If I had my preference, I would have wanted to talk to Ernie because we are always striving to represent diversity, and it would have been nice to feature an alternative lifestyle.

Instead I chose Elmo because my instant reaction to Grover was, “What the hell is a Grover?” Besides, I had a picture in my mind when it came to Elmo (never mind it was of moms fighting over the Tickle Me Elmo doll several years ago, which I recall as “The Holiday a Vibrating Muppet Senselessly Boned America”).

After calling Elmo’s official representative (yes, a doll has someone to make appointments), it was set up for 10 a.m. the following Monday. I was asked to remember that Elmo was just 3 years old and, as such, could only answer questions appropriate to that age. So there went my first question – “Elmo, that high voice of yours. Were you neutered?” Which I had assumed would have been a mandatory part of the adoption process.

No matter. I could always ask Elmo his feelings on the – no, wait, that wouldn’t work. Maybe on how he views – nope, that would be inappropriate too, because I am pretty sure no Muppet has a sex life, especially a Muppet that is allegedly just 3 years old. So much for the goal of getting Elmo to say a curse word (a sound bite that definitely would have brought more than a few bucks as a ringtone).

As the appointed time approached, I connected and tested the tape recorder (would not want to misquote someone who is now in Bartlett’s for the quote, “Ooohh, that tickles, now get your hands off me, Michael”). My questions were lined up, ranging from “What’s you favorite color?” to “Have you ever been inside a Turkish prison?” the last to be used only if his agent was on the other line discussing his move to a better Sesame Street neighborhood.

Only the phone never rang.

“I’m so sorry, he was supposed to be in his office by now,” his publicist said. Elmo has an office. Salt in the wound.

“I guess this is the last day of taping and they’re all at the wrap party,” the publicist continued. “To be honest, I’m not sure he’s going to be here any time soon. Maybe it would be best if we postponed.”

I imagined Elmo at the party, having a few too many, bumping into that flaming yellow seven-foot bird and screaming, “You’re not so big!” Or Oscar following him around saying, “Tickle this, Elmo.” And of course the while thing is captured by Bert, who’s been working for the Weekly World News all along.

The bottom line, however, is that I was blown off by Elmo.

Think I’ll just sit down and watch Gigli so I can feel good about myself again.