A Verbal Tic!

Well, here I am again after a long break from the Blog and with it nearly May Day and I thought that a break of eight months was more than enough time to leave between blogs, so here goes!

It was only a few days ago that I realised that I had developed a tic.  Not a tic under the eye or a twitch of the mouth but a verbal tic.  No not a tic like the poor souls who suffer the verbal and physical tics of Tourettes syndrome but one of my own making,  all about the making of a nice cup of tea.

Being both English, of a certain age and retired,  I am a great consumer of tea and other beverages including liberal doses of coffee and booze.  Anyway this is about tea which these days the blend of tea I drink varies from straight down to earth stand your spoon up in "builders tea" (in truth I have not drunk this blend for over 40 years) to the pale and fragrant Earl Grey and my present blend of choice, Kenyan.

Now,  I like to think that I am a man who shares his domestic responsibilities with a hardworking a long suffering partner.  Heavens, I cut the grass in the summer, I perform a variety of minor DIY jobs about the house (changing light bulbs mainly these days) and when on cleaning day, I do the dusting from top to bottom.  Despite my willingness to do so, I am not permitted to iron or undertake any laundering under any but the most dire of emergencies. I am however an accomplished ironer of shorts and trousers from days in the army and I do make tea first thing in the morning and go on to share in the preparation, or so I thought, of an equal number of brewings of tea during the rest of the day.  Having said this I am inclined think that my partner would argue this point as she seems to drink more tea than I do and therefore possibly makes more. So, here's the thing.  It is precisely because she drinks more tea than I do that the sharing thing gets a bit unbalanced and I have noticed that my response to her question "would you like a cuppa" has increasingly become, what shall I say, noticeable. 

Let me explain. Take most afternoons and evenings, I am slumped in font of the TV catching up on late night recorded TV when I am asked that question, "would you like a cuppa".  Admittedly we had not had a cuppa for about an hour or so and it was probably my turn to make one, but put simply, I hadn't felt like having another one anyway and had remained "slumped".  At least this was the case until I was asked again and then,  it was out, the "verbal tic". 

I wasn't to know it was a "verbal tic" at the exact moment of utterance. that realization was to come some weeks later when being asked, "would you like a cuppa".

The conversation goes like this:

She:  Tea?
Me:   Oh! Yes please. - Mistake #1
She: OK

Later:

She: Ready for another tea?
Me: Oh! Yes please. - mistake #2
She: OK

Still Later:

She:  Another cup of tea?
Me:  Oh!, no thanks.   - mistake #3

Even Later:

She:  Tea?
Me:   Oh! Yes please - mistake #4 AND the "verbal tic" is established.

I need not go on about the frequency of these tea offerings, I just wanted to illustrate a pattern of a developing use of speech that has now become so much of a "problem" I was forced to admit to it to my long suffering "Char Wallah"...sorry partner. 

The "tic"?  "I have to stop saying "oh" every time you ask me if I want a cup of tea" I said one day earlier this week to the bearer of tea.    "Yes I know" she replied with just a hint of gritted teeth.  "I've noticed you saying that "oh" word a lot lately and I was going to say something", she said.

There,  you have it, I have been affecting surprise each time a cup of tea was being offered when what I should have been doing was leaping to my feet and making the tea myself.  I had missed the signals, I had got away with it for several weeks and I had got off lightly. But no more, now I have to concentrate on not blurting out "oh" each time it's her time to make the tea and of course I have to make the tea myself more often.

Now, I say, "yes please,  but "oh" do let me make it".