#777: Keeping Dirty
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 I woke up feeling somewhat energetic today, meaning I still need a nap, because it's noon, my gawd, but I have enough juice to actually do something about this apartment we have trashed through over a month of sweating on and around everything without cleaning up. Us post-hysterectomy types with husbands with crippled backs end up with dirty houses.
So, I woke up with the best intentions, ready to tackle our terrificly disgusting bathroom, when I heard rain splashing into puddles on the street outside. Enter ridiculous phobia number two: my fear of running a lot of water inside when it is raining. As far back as I can remember, I don't like to take baths and will definitely not shower when it is raining. Running water to clean the bathtub is out, too. Dishes could happen, because I would only have to run the water for a little while and could step away while the sink filled. You know, because I could die or something.
I have this idea that I would become one of those rare cases in which a person is electrocuted by lightning through their bathwater. Don't laugh, because it really can happen.
Plus, sometimes it feels good to hang around in your own eau de vivre and revel in the sour-sweet smell that wafts up when you reach for the salt. (I find that cooking naked helps to keep the stench flowing free and easy.)
When you write a sentence inside brackets, do you put the period inside or outside the second bracket?
Reader Comments (9)
Plus, what if turning on the tap opens a mysterious but drenching wormhole that channels all the water falling outside through your spigot???? Far too risky.
Period goes inside the parentheses if you have (a) whole sentence(s) in there. (Like if you want to mention whole separate incident as a casual bracketed tangent.) If the parenthesized thought is an aside in a larger sentence, period goes outside, when you finish the larger sentence (like this).
The joys of punctuation!
A complete sentence enclosed in parentheses should have the period within the parentheses, according to the CPA Stylebook. I figured CPA is the most applicable to a Canadian blog, don't you think? Though, as an MLA devotée, I am of course appalled at your gratuitous use of parenthetical asides.
This message brought to you by Anal Grammar Girl.
If you want to be annoyed into getting off your duff and cleaning, despite rain-induced potamophobia, you can sign up for email reminders at fly lady (dot) net. Not my thing, but then again my apartment looks like a war zone and smells like stale takeout pizza so who am I to judge?
Kate, thanks for the FlyLady tip. I've already signed up.
I've had that very same fear for much of my life.
It stemmed from growing up in the "countryside" and having well water instead of city water.
The idea was that the lightning could strike the underground spring that filled the well and then travel through the metal pipes into the house and.. KABLAMMO!
I go so far as to refuse to pee in case the lightning comes up through the toilet and roasts my nether region. NO THANK YOU.
And yes, my friends and loved ones DO mock me. Regularly. I don't care.
If you need any help hauling out garbage and whatnot, I'm your girl, and you know where to find me. :)
Why am I surprised that you didn't mention this post number, 777? This seems like a number that would either bother you or excite you.
The period would go inside in that case. It would go outside if the bracketed material was part of a sentence that was started before the brackets. Got it? Glad you are feeling better.
my mom had that phobia and refused to let any of us run water during thunderstorms. for a long time after i outgrew their house i had the same fear. then one day i just decided to live dangerously.
every once in a while, i still imagine the crocodile that lives in the sewers is going to bite my butt while i'm taking a dump, but that's about all that's left.
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