whoops

So Lent is over and I didn't succeed in keeping the blog or stopping swearing. I did cut down on the swearing though. Who knows, I may start that blog and keep it up some day soon!

Day Seven...the 40 days only begin

40 days left, including today. I feel so cheated. I feel like the past 6 days have been a mini-lifetime, and the promise of a lenten 40 days actually only starts just now. Perhaps my frustrations are fuelled by the fact that I have little or nothing to do in work. I look at the phone and will it to ring, it has a clock on it, I see the time. I look at my screen and will new emails to pop into my inbox, the screen tells me the time. The one liners from the fella across the way, one of the lads I used to give a lift to and the beardy fella just aren't distracting me enough for the day. My colleague's hangover has been flittering entertainment at random intervals. I walked to the bar machine, they had no healthy snacks, so I got a diet coke, now my stomach feels like it's about to explode and I'm trying to burp on the quiet. Shoulda bought the jaffa cakes.

On the plus side, I haven't sworn at all today, that I know of. I shall have to put colleagues and friends on high alert now to put a pure stop to the swearing. It's still not a natural tendency towards cleaner language, but I think I'm getting there. Having said that, I'm giving one of the lads a lift home today, so I have to travel the Blanchardstown way again, so I'm not holding out much hope for a clean slate today. Oh yeah, my team is playing in the second leg of the champions league and the opposition has the upper hand, no chance of a clean slate today.

***
"This channel is locked, please contact your service provider" <flick channel up, and back normal screen displays momentarily, then error message> I repeat this sequence 3 times. The rage boils inside me. "Motherfucking NTL, or fucking UPC or whatever the shit they call themselves nowadays. Arse fucking biscuits. The bloody bastard arseholes!!!!!! I'm going to absolutely fuck the fucking NTL shitty box out the fucking window, I can't befuckinglieve its broken right bloody now" (I think that may have been building up for a while, but, in fairness, 5 minutes before the match starts and the telly goes) This is a familiar rant of anger towards our television provider. For some reason, there regularly seems to be a problem shortly before or during football matches.

So, Eoin, from UPC receives my rant of anger, on the plus side I don't think I swore at him but I did go along the lines of "UPC, NTL, Cablelink, whatever you want to call yourselves, I don't care, there is nothing but problems, why is it always before a football match? What's that about? Seriously, I'm absolutely sick of this." Eoin "Ok, can you just plug out your box and I'll send a signal boost down the line". I laughed and told him I had already done this as this is the only solution the company ever gives me. I duly plugged it out and he "sent a signal boost" to our 2-week-old replacement telebox, which had a similar signal sent to it only a few weeks ago. It must have been lonely and wanted to communicate with the mother-ship. Me hoop if there is even such a thing.

Well, that's the lenten promise well and truly fucked the shit out the bastard window for tonight. Holy mother of fuck, I was angry earlier. Bastard television service providers with their arsehole "technicians" on the phone.

Swears for day seven = several fucking million.

Day Six....Monday

Hungover, tired, ratty. Swearing.

The Car: I can't understand people who leave indicators on. Do you not hear it? Do you not see the flashy thing on the dashboard?!

Petrol stations: Evidently those around Swords are all Diesel, and the one that is petrol is 10c more expensive than everywhere else. Risk driving home with the orange light on, yes please.

Work: Why does all the work come in one go? At the end of the day? When I'm already wrecked? Made up the 45 minutes at the end of the day that I took extra in bed this morning, nursing my poor head.

Beautician: Extractions are painful.

So my general tiredness and hungover-ness threw the swearing ban out the window, but I shall start again strong tomorrow.

Days Three, Four and Five.....total write off....

It was always going to go wrong at the weekend. It was a boring day in work. I was giving two lads a lift and one of them wasn't hurrying himself like I asked, which meant we left at 16:05 rather than 16:00, which may sound insignificant, however, Dublin traffic on a Friday is crazy all day but with every passing minute after 16:00 hours it gets progressively worse. So leaving 5 minutes later is actually quite significant.


I didn't get to Maynooth until 17:30, which would have been more like 17:10 if I had those extra 5 minutes. However, I got a Subway (Italian BMT...yum...drool) on the way, which made my lateness a little more bearable. However, I broke my promise to only eat healthy food for Lent. (I like to do things big style, I gave up swearing and everything that is bad for me except for caffeine.) Fail. I'll hope back on the wagon, it's grand.


So, then I packed bags in aid of the Peamount fund for the women's team to go to Europe until about 20:30. So then I was kind of tired and had a few slips but all in all it was only about 9 swears for the day.


Saturday, back bag packing again. 11:00 until about 17:00, then the Man United and Ireland matches. Much swearing (thanks to one, rather sick, but hilarious, mini pea!). Much eating of junk food (thanks to the same pea, the temptation of packing snacks into shopping bags all day and, general tiredness). I proceeded to fall asleep for several hours on my Elephant Bear.


Sunday. Waiting 45 minutes for a bus in the slight cold. I hate pleblic transport. A small child waved at me. Her minder had just filled her bottle half-full with Powerade. Dangerous move. A man asked me when the bus was coming. My Mum always tells me I'm not approachable, apparently the general public does not roll with this view, much to my annoyance. The peasant wagon was full and stuffy. Several swears rolled through my mind that I did not vocalize, so they don't count.


I met the college-mate, American and Pole, had some unremarkable food and a beer then sauntered off to the Jameson factory. A bad tour and a free whiskey later and we were on our way to PYG to pay €5 to be branded with their stamp and get 40% off our drinks. The rest was a spiraling free fall of swearing, drinking and playing our own 5 question version of "All Star Mr and Mrs". Another Subway and another bogger buggy and I was home. Intoxicated, singing to myself and after jogging home (!!). 

Day 2...distracted swearing

Another swear early this morning as part of general conversation, then two more, but they were as part of songs, does that count? Hmmm, I'm going to go with yes, if I'm ever going to properly cut it out.

I think I've realised that almost half of my swears come when I'm thinking rather than saying "em" or just not saying anything at all. So, I shall be thinking more before I talk and not just let my tongue wobble around in my mouth on it's own. Exhibit A; swearing while driving; not because I am annoyed at other drivers but when I have passengers I'm concentrating on trying to drive while holding a conversation, thus, while trying to process thoughts and multitask, a long drawn out swear is a good time filler and brain jog.

***
I love pople's reactions to my lenten promise. "Giving up swearing?" F***, I couldn't do that or, F*****g H**l! It is almost as if, once people hear that you cannot swear, the feel the need to swear.

***

I lost count for the day, I think I'm on 6 and it's only 5:30pm... <insert appropriate swear here> That's 7.

Day One...too many pancakes

My stomach is still full from the marshmallow, chocolate and chocolate spread pancake indulgence of the night before and then a disgusting church louse (some, most, people call these woodlice, but my Mum is from Galway and we have always been the weird kids that say church lice) anyway, the little bugger crosses my path in the kitchen first thing in the morning. Ordinarly, a chorus of swearing would greet the creature as I sweep it up and throw it outside. I keep quiet and my stomach lurches as I get rid of the wriggly, crunchy...thing. Yuck. Lent is upon me. I take this as my opportunity to give up swearing. Apparently I have the mouth of a sailor, swearing every few words. So now I must actively listen to myself speak and be aware of my curses.

I have already noticed the number of times my colleagues swear. I'm not sure whether my shock sensitivity has just been heightened or whether I'm just up on my high horse, but I am realising how vulgar it sounds.

Oh but I miss it... There is nothing like a good appropriate swear in some circumstances. I have such a colourful vocabulary of swears in my repertoire too. I might have to write them down before I forget the sheer capacity of different offensive words that I will now erradicate from my every day language. They will be perfectly acceptable for use with any reference to football after these 40 days.

***
46 days?!! I just spoke to my sister (who is giving up chocolate in it's solid form, so she can continue to drink hot chocolate and the odd chocolate milkshake, because she doesn't really drink tea and she likes something hot...apparently) Lent, this year, is 46 days. shocking. This could be harder than I thought.

***

7 swears for the day, that I noticed, including one massive F*** at the top of my voice. Ooops. I gave up junk food too, that's a breeze.