[Warning: the following article makes liberal use of the C word]

The scene? The fraternity dining room, Saturday night. A group including myself, the Suze, and Jim are playing cards. The game is Threes and Fives. The rules, as we play it, are simple: each player is dealt two cards. 3s and 5s are wild. Each player examines their hand, determines a course of action, and then holds the cards out in front of them.

3... 2... 1... drop!

Anybody who drops their cards is out. Anybody still holding their cards shows down. The highest pair wins the pot. Losers match the pot. The game continues until a single player holds their cards.

In this particular hand, the Suze, after lengthy deliberation, elected to drop her cards. After the showdown, it was revealed she had held a pair of Aces. She could only be beat by someone with two 3s, two 5s, or a 3 and a 5. The winning hand that round? A pair of Kings.

Here's where things get ugly. (Remember, the c-word is approachin'!)

Jim exclaimed: "Suzi, you are such a cunt!"

What Suzi didn't realize at the time is that Jim was referencing a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. In that episode, they were playing Guts (a similar game to Threes and Fives), and a player chickened out on a similarly strong hand. All in good fun, Larry David exclaimed that the man was a cunt.

What Jim should have remembered is that, like all episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, that ended in embarrassment, awkwardness, and rage. Suzi threw down her cards, told Jim to go fuck himself, and stormed out of the front door. She walked home, and only forgave Jim a week later when he made her a homemade apology card which she still keeps on the fridge to remind him of his indiscretion.

(By the way Suzi? Welcome to Front House!)

Point is, cunt is a powerful word. It is in that class of words where you can reference it by letter. The N word, the F word, and the C word. That's the list. Cunt is the argumentative point of no return; once the cunt is out of the bottle, you can't put it back in. If the cops come to your house after a fight and you've been stabbed, and your woman says, "But officer, he called me a cunt!" that's mitigating circumstances. "Sir, you shouldn't have done that."

What we need is a way that we can tap into the powerful energy of the C word in polite company. Sure, you can say somebody's being a real see you next tuesday, but (1) I don't have all fucking day, and (2) it lacks the audible punch of the one syllable, hard k sound. Say it out loud. Cunt. CUNT. I got a chill just by typing it.

Fortunately for me, fate, and TLC, has stepped in and given us all a solid replacement.  Kate Gosselin of Jon and Kate Plus 8 is the most perfect example of a cunt that I have ever seen. She's the Babe Ruth, the Lebron James, the Marlon Brando of cuntiness.

"Suzi, you are such a kate!"

See? All of the fun of calling a woman a cunt (and it IS fun, oh yes), but none of the downside.