Abuela’s Favorite Word

What’s the one word your Abuela would say or add on to every insult about every person she was gossiping about or yelling at you because you were too loud during her “novela que empieza ahora”? Does Cagalitroso/Cagalitrosa ring a bell? If I could be paid in endless amounts of colonia de violetas every time this incredible woman would say that word I would smell like a Cuban baby ’til death. Every time I walk into Abuelas house, taking in the smell of whatever she was frying usually un bistec empanizado because no Cuban would say “una Milanesa”, and god forbid I step on her San Lazaro statue that was up to my head I would hear it, “Cagalitrosa“.

It wasn’t until I was 13, the height of Chinese slippers fashion and hair gel (don’t laugh you were a chonga once in your life too) that I had the courage to ask her what she was saying. I crept to her recliner chair as Sabado Gigante was on commercial break and asked. So what did Abuela say? “Mi hijita la cosa que sale de tu culo”, She basically told me its what comes out of my ass. Cagalitrosa is just a shitty person by Cuban definition or in this case Abuelas.