I have to tell the story: My buddy and I had a boss, a little short chunky older guy named Larry. Larry was keen, both positive and negative, everything exaggerated. If something was good it was “fantastic”, bad it was “terrible”. Like he always had too much caffeine. He was a basically good person, did not like to swear. So rather than take the Lord’s name in vain, he’d cut it off. When frustrated or angry or annoyed, it wasn’t God blank it, it was “GA!” My buddy and I finally figured it out and started doing it like Larry. Once you start, you can’t stop. Then we’d see it in the Dilbert cartoon in the newspaper. “GAA!!” That is a really hard habit to break and it is infectious. You probably noticed that MT is already a convert.

Larry was also very self critical. When he realized he’d messed up, he would mutter “idiot child…” Hard to keep a straight face when he doubled up on you: “GAA!….. idiot child….”