 The writing staff often used their individual life experiences for inspirations to come up with the storylines of the series ' episodes . For example , the episode " Sailor Mouth " , in which SpongeBob and Patrick learn profanity , was inspired by creative director Derek Drymon 's experience of getting in trouble as a child for using the f @-@ word in front of his mother . Drymon said , " The scene where Patrick is running to Mr. Krabs to tattle , with SpongeBob chasing him , is pretty much how it happened in real life " . The end of the episode , in which Mr. Krabs uses even more profanity than SpongeBob and Patrick , was inspired " by the fact that my [ Drymon 's ] mother has a sailor mouth herself " . The idea for the episode " The Secret Box " also came from one of Drymon 's childhood experiences . Hillenburg explained , " Drymon had a secret box [ as a kid ] and started telling us about it . We wanted to make fun of him and use it . " 
