What is this “sleeps” business? When did we, as adults, start saying “sleeps” instead of “days”? I can’t bear it! I’m banning it from my life and if I hear anyone say it I am going to put my fingers in my ears and go “NAHAHAHAHAHAHNAAAA” like a fire engine whilst stamping my feet.

I’m well aware that I have some annoying verbal tics – I say uhhhm a lot, and, like many who make Youtube videos and sometimes drop into cliché and bad speaking habits, I often use the lazy description for products I love – “this is one of my absolute favourites“. I, like everyone else in this world, have excruciatingly irritating phrases that I use. You may list them below in the comments, if you want, but I stand my ground on counting the days with “sleeps”. Sleeps isn’t even a noun, it’s a bloody VERB! I wouldn’t say “it’s five hundred walks to the tube station” or “only ten eats until I’ve finished my glittery mini cupcake!” So what’s with the sleeps thing? Will we start calling our dogs the “woof woof” and our hoovers the “noo noos”? Will we drop the brum brum at the garage and take the choo choo to work instead? I think not.

Sleeps: if you are wearing pyjamas with Care Bears printed on them whilst eating strawberry Angel Delight with a plastic spoon then you have my explicit permission to use “sleeps” as a unit of measurement. If you are one of those people who has the adult baby fetish and you wear a big nappy and live in a gargantuan cot – you may also use it without feeling any additional sense of embarrassment. People with jobs, houses, kids, cars, any form of education: please. Christmas on its own is enough to make us feel deliciously childlike – we don’t need babytalk too! Who’s with me on this? Who’s not? Opinions below – and, as per usual, rants must be non-sweary, non-vindictive and have a sense of humour.

(Disclaimer: I am not talking about any one particular person, here, including the good friend who I know will be reading this and uses the exact term on her Facebook status every day from about the second of November. Yours, The Grinch.)

Image is from a free wallpaper site: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/care-bears/images/256396/title/care-bears-wallpaper-wallpaper