Word Habits

I haven’t been able to sleep lately, so when that happens I jump on my computer and write.  I do not think, I just write…Well, maybe I do think because I could not write if I wasn’t thinking, I suppose.  Hence, last night I started 'thinking' about how people say certain words that aren't part of the English language, over and over again, sometimes for years. For example, I spoke to an old friend the other day, who I haven’t spoken to in years, that used to say the word "majorly" all of the time.

It drove me crazy, but I didn’t want to sound like my mother, and say, “Don’t say that.”  Or “Did you know that majorly is not a word?”  Because, correcting an adult, particularly a friend, would have sounded self-righteous and mean.  Besides, there is nothing wrong with saying a word you like…it is not as if it’s against the law or anything.  Well, I guess you could say it causes mental anguish, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, I was surprised that she still used the same word…and she’s not the only one.  We are all guilty of this malacy…you see, malacy is also not a word, or I do not think it is, well, it may be a synonym for malady, who knows. 

My mother is still constantly correcting my words, but she is just as guilty of improper word usage as I am…although she would never admit it.  I don’t know why she is still correcting my language, but I guess she’s trying to make up for lost time, or she’s afraid I may run into one of her friends, and say, “Hello, it’s so nice to see you after all these years.  It’s been a majorly long time, hasn’t it?  “  

When I was a teenager, my siblings and I had certain after school responsibilities she demanded we complete by the time she came home from work, or shopping, or riding horses, etc…whatever she was doing.  In any event, my after school duty was to keep our kitchen clean, and I thought it was unfair since I had two older brothers who were constantly in the kitchen dirtying dishes.  I mean, come on, what teenage boy doesn’t spend much of his time staring into the refrigerator?


Well, my brothers were typical teenage boys, hence, everyday after school, my brothers had demolished my cleaning job by the time my mother’s 1966 Ford Galaxy zoomed up our driveway-(our driveway was on a hill, well actually, our   house was on a hill.  That is why the driveway was…oh, you know what I mean-).


Anyway, we had better have our chores finished by the time we heard my mother’s white monster car soar up the driveway. (The car’s name was Charger)




I wish I could tell you more about “Charger,” (The Ford Galaxy) the Pear Apple tree, and our house on the hill,  but I’m going to have to write about them in another post…because I’m trying to break the habit of bouncing from one topic to another-





O.K. now, where was I?


Oh yes, back to my unfair chores…According to my sluggish hormonial (not a word) teenage brain, kitchen duty should have landed on my brothers strong shoulders, not mine.  Besides, it was obvious that my mother just wanted to torture me, because she could have had me dust the living room or take the garbage out, but no, she was adamantly against it.




Actually, I could not understand why it was illegal for teenagers to move into their own apartment.




Besides, grown-ups didn’t have a clue what teens were doing anyway.






Every time I asked her for a different chore, she would say; “Ann, that is the 17^th time you have asked me the same question!” At which point I would say, well, just give me one good reason why we cannot at least change the chores for once, and I’ll quit asking.”



That is when she would get so mad; it changed the features in her face. My mother would morph into someone else. Have you ever noticed when you’re involved in a confrontation you senses heighten, and you notice details about the person you’re arguing with that you’ve never noticed before?


For instance, when the maintenance man at my apt. complex told me this week that I would have to pay for a new dishwasher, I noticed that his eyes were big, brown and round, they looked like they were too big for his face, like a baby puppies. Moreover, his hair had turned grayer since the last time I saw him, which was the day before.


In any event, the first time my senses heighten with my mother, it scared the daylights out of me, in fact, she still can scare me to death.



Well, after I opened my mouth (for the seventeenth time) about my chore duties, and I smelled the strong scent of  Chanel #5 or Ciarra in the air, I took off for my room, but, as always she caught me; and the lecture was on it’s way.




After telling me why I wasn’t going to talk to her like that, she’d cock her head to the side, and look at me like she didn’t have a clue who I was, after which, she’d straighten her arm out, and point with her index finger like she had her finger on the trigger of a gun, and say; “Ann, go to your room, don’t say a word, just go to your room and do not come out for the next seventeen years!”