Go Away.

Once, when I was in standard two, I was severely remonstrated by a teacher for telling another girl to go away. It hadn't seemed like such a bad thing at the time. I was eight years old, I was planning a secret surprise with my friend, and we didn't want to let the cat out of the bag.

I was called out in front of the class, and had to stand there while my teacher listed to all of my peers my many flaws. I also wasn't allowed to talk to my friend for the rest of the week. I got the message; this was the worst thing that you could say to another human being.

Worse than a b***h, worse than a b*****d, worse than calling the slow kid in the class a r****d.

For skipping school you got the strap; for pushing someone into the sharp edge of the jungle gym you got a talking to, and then the strap. Quick and easy and over in less than a minute. But for daring to tell someone else in the school yard to go away when you didn't want to play with them - that earned you a week long punishment.

Corporal punishment has faded into the past since then; for all I know everything now involves week long psychological torture rather than a short, sharp assault by a full-grown adult on a small child. Or you get a "time-out" whatever that new-age stuff means.

Never mind. Back to the point.

I still have days where I'm busy or I'm grumpy or I just don't want to be dealing with you lot of humans today thank you very much. I still have days where I want to tell everybody on earth to sod off to another piece of the planet and don't make any noise while you're at it.

And yet I would still rather bite through my lower lip rather than just tell you politely to GO AWAY.