Easter Eggs Stories and Inappropriate Words for the Workplace

Two anecdotes on Easter eggs:

The company hid eggs all around the canteen today and we found two of them, which inspired many a childhood story on Easter Egg Hunts. Marc's story in particular sounded a lot of fun and I would love to try it with any kiddies I may or may not have one day (and in the meantime test run on my niece and nephew?). Marc's Mom used to hide eggs all over the house, all carefully wrapped, but along with all the nice chocolate eggs she would also hide real uncooked eggs and hard-boiled eggs, just to psych them out. In their haste to unwrap the eggs, disaster would ensue if they indeed had a raw dud and accidentally smash it in their hands. How funny! And how appropriate! Why should kids automatically be rewarded with chocolate? They should indeed learn that, mixed up in life's pleasantries are also less pleasant realities like.. the risk of salmonella. What a life lesson.

In other egg-related news, today our Director of Finance came around and gave everyone a big Easter egg - one of those big ones (~6 inches tall, I have just made Keith measure it so you can rest assured that the measurements provided in this post are accurate) that are a hollow shell and have two solid eggs inside them. I was excited as I think that's only about the second time in my life that someone has given me a big easter egg (total value £1). But then I made the fatal mistake of leaving my shiny prize right next to my laptop beside the hot fan, leaving it partially melted!!! It was still wrapped tight in the foil but was soft and lumpy. I squealed my disappointment and my team laughed so hard at me that the director could hear us in her office. Thankfully she had extra eggs so I claimed a new one and stuck the sad melty one in the fridge (which will provide us more fun when we unwrap it next week to see what shape it has warped into).

On my way back from the fridge clutching my egg I giddly proclaimed "Crisis averted guys, I've got a new egg! Not that any of you bastards cared!" which prompted a few "oooh"s and "ouch"s. Which leads me to my next topic - what words are inappropriate for work? There are very obvious ones of course, even potty mouth me would never dare use the c word or, say, racial slurs at work, but there are certainly plenty that are bandied about in our open office with no shame. This is especially a conundrum to me as I have learned so many English rude phrases while being here, and without growing up with them, don't understand exactly how rude they are, without the right context. It does not help that my biggest English influences (Keith's friends - hello to those of you still reading) are the most inappropriate, immature 29 year olds I know. Here's the list of them - will someone tell me if they are ok to say???

- bastard. i used it today. is it that bad? maybe since i actually called the people i was talking to bastards?
- bollocks. definition: balls; used commonly in place of "shit"
- sod off. definition: get lost; sod short for sodomy though which is not a safe-for-work topic
- take the piss. definition: mocking/joking with/making fun of someone
- muppet.
- bloody hell. also used commonly in place of "shit"

ah forget it who cares. i'm always using proper swear words at work anyway when i get super angry, i'm all f this and f that. it's too late to rehab my image.