You will not find the word "skeeve" in Webster’s Dictionary unless you have the South Philadelphia edition. "Skeeve" means to view with extreme distaste or discomfort. You can skeeve practically anything and most South Philadelphians do.
It is an undeniable cultural fact that females skeeve more than males do. Perhaps it is the Oscar Madison in us, but we males skeeve very few things, especially of a sexual nature. A species that finds female mud-wrestling a turn-on will skeeve little. Though we don’t skeeve much, females often skeeve us, and with good reason. If you are trying to hit on a woman who skeeves you, no amount of Right Guard will change her mind. You might as well stop wasting your time and move on.
South Philadelphia females begin to skeeve around puberty. Much like confirmations, Bat Mitzvahs and other religious rituals herald the transition into adulthood for the rest of the female population, the moment a South Philadelphia girl emits the scream "I skeeve!" she officially becomes a woman.
Our females find virtue in skeeving. The more things you skeeve, the higher you are in their social order. The worst faux pas for a woman in South Philadelphia is to be the only one in a group of females who doesn’t skeeve the particular subject that evening. In fact, at parties there is sort of a winnowing-out process. A bunch of topics are broached, and whichever female skeeves the most is crowned the unofficial Queen of Skeeve for the evening. Get crowned enough times and you have the social equivalent of the oracle or wise men of ancient times.
I don’t mean to imply that there is anything wrong with skeeving or that it is totally confined to one sex or social class. For instance, even an erudite columnist such as the Daily News‘ Stu Bykofsky mentioned in our recent online chat about the Schiavo case that the husband definitely had a skeeve factor. On the other end of the spectrum are those of us who merely skeeve public restrooms. We are less complicated people. For such people, Lysol is the primary anti-skeeve agent. The invention of Lysol was greeted by South Philadelphia females with the kind of enthusiasm that the rest of the world reserved for the polio vaccine. For these folks, a bottle of antibacterial soap and a can of Lysol are indispensable to making it through the day.
Skeeving is a part of our culture. I trace its beginnings to the 1950s, when some women skeeved anything that wasn’t connected with Pat Boone. Women of my mother’s generation tended to just hold their noses and shout a simple "P.U.!" under similar circumstances. When their teen daughters began to shout "I skeeve!" they didn’t quite know what to make of it. Since then, our women have passed their standards of skeeving from one generation to the next.
We tend to view complicated social issues in terms of the skeeve factor (I am not knocking Bykofsky here, but just noting a fact). For instance, some of us are likely to view our invasion of Iraq as a mistake not because we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, but because we skeeve the place. I swear I saw one such anti-war demonstrator downtown holding a placard that read, "Stop the war! I skeeve!"
The skeeve factor was very important during the Clinton years. Most political pundits couldn’t understand why our women didn’t blame Clinton for his escapades with the intern. My feeling is once they found Monica Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress in her closet with the stain still on it, they skeeved her, not Bill. A defense attorney would be wise to note the importance of the skeeve factor in South Philadelphia when deciding whether to challenge one of us as a juror. Michael Jackson wouldn’t have a chance if they tried his case downtown.
Skeeving is highly personal. Although there are universal things that all of us down here skeeve, much like sexual fetishes, each person’s skeeve list tends to be unique and highly personal. Only your best friends know what you really skeeve. And you might be shocked at what you will find on any particular list. The recent attempt to ban smoking in all public places might have to do more with skeeving than with citizens’ health. Sometimes, though, if you’re voting on such legislation, a large political contribution from a bar or restaurant owner will offset the skeeve factor.
The reason some folks won’t eat meatballs in a restaurant is that for some deep psychological reason, they skeeve. Skeeving often defies the rational thought process. Skeeving can sometimes even lead to deception between spouses. How do you tell your husband you skeeve the way he eats?
As Shakespeare might have written if he were from South Philadelphia, "What a tangled web we weave when we first begin to skeeve."
