The Voice Within

The latest torment devised to force bloggers to humiliate themselves requires us to disclose ten things that we say to ourselves every day. Random Pearls of Wisdom is the kindly culprit in my case.  It was hard to narrow it down for I mutter to myself all day long and, although much of it is certainly random, none of it, unlike my tormentor, contains either pearls or wisdom. Below, however, is the verbal framework, that supports me through the daily grind.

Sock it to me, junior! I emit this upon awakening and rearing bolt upright on my pillows each morning. It makes the coming day seem more malleable, but the Vicar, for some reason, dislikes the habit and asks, mildly, if I could devise a different salute to the dawn.

Let’s get this show on the road! Another ritual motivator, usually uttered while still prone in bed, and which also seems to exasperate the Vicar.

HatemyselfIhatemyselfIhatemyself! This I mutter at intervals throughout the day when I realise that I’ve confused the lay reader’s infected bunion with the verger’s irritable bowel/forgotten to pack the school lunch bags/dispatched a sultry email intended for the Vicar to the Guardian’s editorial assistant by mistake.

There must be a middle way. My daily response to life’s conundrums, from disentangling the Sunday School rota to George Osborne’s fiscal daring.

I’ve just got to send a quick work email. Cunning child-proof code for ‘Clear off while I surrender to an urge to idle on Twitter/Blogger’.

In a minute… Invaluable catch-all phrase which permits me to extend said Twitter and Blogger idling for half an hour instead of cooking supper/checking homework/mediating infant brawls.

A bit of a rest should sort it out. My scientific solution to all domestic hiccups, be it an obstreperous child or a recalcitrant ink-jet printer.

It’s good for you! My irrestistible argument,  whether it’s to compel my son to choose bran flakes, my daughter to walk to school, or the Vicar to forsake his Lenten alcohol fast.

This is nice! breathed in marvelment by me to the Vicar and by the Vicar to me as we settle of an evening under our sofa rugs with Gardener’s World (me) and an erudite theolological exposition (him), as though the indulgence is a rarity instead of a nightly routine.

I’ve run out of phrases but my daughter remarked recently that I’m always using the words pond, obtuse, bugger and Wyche Cutting.

Now your turn. What do you say every day Melksham Mum, AlwaysARedhead, Reluctant Housedad? And, anyone else reading this, what do YOU say?