And the award for MOST (mildly) PROFANE goes to...

I happened to be exiting my kitchen following an extremely unsuccessful forage and caught a glimpse of the program to which my daughters were riveted.

(I'm really trying to get a handle on this "don't end a sentence with a preposition" stuff and deep into a MAJOR REWRITE. Can you tell?)

Anyway... It's the Disney Channel. Always, the Disney Channel. And, of course, the show taking up all 47 inches of my LCD screen is the one which makes me most want to gouge out my own eyeballs: The Suite Life On Deck.

I'm feeling a little seasick just thinking about it.

Now granted--I don't watch a lot of television. I'm more of a "go read a book or something" kind of a girl. True, I love a good movie--especially an action flick--and thanks to DVR technology I will watch the occasional recorded program (5-7 taps of the arrow and I'm no longer craving snack foods and back in the Story!) But when it comes to Tween Programming, I must admit that, aside from an occasional episode of Phineus and Ferb (love those little guys), I am not a fan.

So here I am, without Dr. Pepper, without even a snack-sized Kit-Kat to ease the path back to my Writing Cave, and I have to see three annoying teen actresses scarfing ice cream out of the containers alongside a--please tell me it's not--! A hairless cat.

That is N-O-T RIGHT. My apologies to God--I'm sure he had a plan for this... thing--but... really? A hairless cat?

I'm an animal lover, curse my allergies. My long-haired cat died last winter and Rex (I believe that's the technical name for a hairless cat) might be an ideal pet for me except for one thing. How, in the name of all that's furry, do you snuggle a hairless cat? It's, like, naked and stuff. There's something about a hairless cat that is just...well... mildly profane.

So it made me think. There's been a lot of blog posting in ECF world the last few weeks about what's profane, what is the definition of profanity, and what we should/shouldn't, can/can't be allowed to put in a novel (as a Christian author) without crossing the line.

Now I finally know the answer.

Words, schmerds, people. Sex and violence? Bring it on. But whatever you do in your quest to be a relevant and edgy author, DO NOT--I said DO NOT allow a hairless cat to appear in your novel.

It could be made into a movie one day.

And that, my friends, would simply be profane.

Don't do it.

Unless, of course, it serves your story.

And another thing: you might just want to think twice about naming your characters Zach or Cody, because.... well.... watch the show. You'll see. If you don't gouge out your own eyeballs, that is.

Now, enough with all this profanity. Go read a book or something.