Always happy, never swearing - São Paulo

Before I had kids, I was a casual swearer. Not the really bad swears and not peppered through my phrases, but I definitely let loose an "s" word or "f" word or "GD" when provoked. After meeting my husband, who has not sworn possibly in his entire life, and having kids, I have really tried to keep it in check. I did not want my four-year old to come out with an "f" word in front of a stranger.

Now the challenge has been São Paulo traffic. No, not the traffic, the individual drivers. The *holes. Oops, see it happens all the time. The worst day was when I was cut off and flipped off by a Mercedes driver for no apparent reason. My kids were in the back and I might have said that the driver of the other car had a small peepee. They might have heard me. Now they say that Mercedes drivers have small peepees. My apologies to any German car drivers.

My husband was not happy to hear the results of my tantrum. One of my sons was not happy to hear daddy unhappy with mommy. So he gave me a happy-face sticker and told me to put it on the dashboard. Any time I got mad at the traffic I was supposed to press the happy face sticker and just be happy.

I cannot say it works all the time, but things are definitely getting better. Except when I see those Mercedes...