As I write this piece, I am in the middle of helping a good friend with a small remodeling project.

I use the term “small” project because, in our prime, we would have considered it to be a small project, something that we could wrap up over a firestorm of a weekend, involving working from sunup to sundown while consuming a properly proportioned amount of adult beverages.

I am well into my sixth decade of life, while my friend is younger by several years. However, he has four times as many bionic parts, which puts us at just about equal on the “Rapidly-Falling-Apart Scale.”

A “small” weekend project from yesteryear now requires us to commit a minimum of 15 workdays, but only in batches of three days at a time. Any more than that and the result is an inability to get out of bed.

Although I’m starting to slow down in the race against time, one construction skill from my youth remains as sharp as ever: I can still swear with the best of them.

On the first day of our little project, we both started out with vim, vigor and a fresh batch of colorful expressions. As most (real) do-it-yourself projects go, we had no plan.

We just looked at the space we had to tear apart, the things we wanted to put back in and started making a mess. When we hit the first obstacle (and it was ONLY the first), choice words were exchanged as we both deemed it necessary to blame the other for having not foreseen said obstacle.

It was our first chance to start swearing and we were eager to dust off our construction vocabulary. He said (something to the effect that) I was, “As dull as a trim blade being pushed through a fence post wrapped in barbed wire.”

My immediate response was to say (something insinuating that) my friend was, “The ugliest of privy droppings.” The more common, but far less creative, swear words were strictly reserved for smashed fingers and as an extra boost when trying to resume standing from a kneeling position (bad backs and sore knees are often aided by exhaling curse words through clenched teeth).

By the end of the first day, our enthusiasm level had dropped to zero, and the most articulate swearing we could muster was to release an exhaustive, “Shiiiughhh.” It tried to start out as a swear word, but didn’t have enough muscle behind it to complete the task.

I may be an accomplished swearer now, but growing up, I had no idea about the complexities behind the art of swearing, or that such words even existed.

In my childhood household, it wasn’t that swearing wasn’t allowed: it was an unknown concept. I had never heard anyone swear and had no clue as to why or how to use such a foreign language.

Then, I went to public school. My education was on.

During those formative years, my best friend and I would pour over Beetle Bailey comic strips, reading the prolific prose of Sgt. Orville P. Snorkel. That guy had a way with words. He could tie a “&%$#@” and a “%&@#!” together in a way that could make a Hollywood Trump Hater blush.

Cursed by an average intelligence level and an above average mischievousness level, my friend and I would try to decode those immortal words (as written by Mort Walker) by matching them to words from our slowly-growing vocabulary.

Once, we asked one of my friend’s older brothers for help in the decoding process. Boy, did we learn a bunch of new words that day.

In spite of my decades of refining the swearing process, I am happy to brag that I am now able to dress down the vilest nemesis with little more than a look. I no longer need to pepper my conversation with four letter words and examples of animal related body functions. I have replaced the words with a blank smirk that combines a questioning head tilt, accompanied by one incredulous raised eyebrow (Tucker Carlson stole it from me).

It screams out, “What in the name of bovine exhaust made you think THAT was a good idea?” It is a learned technique requiring patience, timing and an ability to control hysterical laughter when exposed to the stupidity of others. When properly mastered, it is so much more fun than cussing someone out.

Go ahead — give it a try.

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.