On a really good day in the right near-dark ambient lighting with the help of a team of highly trained ninja-like beauticians, I can pull off…cute. Hello Kitty shoelaces would help the illusion, but a pair of patent-leather blood red stilettos would just confuse people. I would look like I had stolen someone’s shoes. This isn’t a self-deprecating blog post or a dig for followers to jump up with nice things to say; I’m really fine with this. I’ve been trying to veer toward “cute” since the day I was born.

The hardest part was back in junior high school. All of the kids were adorable in kindergarten, got a little bit awkward looking by middle school, but junior high school and high school were where the girls started to look pretty, then beautiful, then by college they were working in the realm of stunning. I got stuck somewhere between adorable and awkward.

That’s pretty much why it makes people laugh when I threaten to roundhouse kick them, sweep their legs out from under them, and pin them face down on the floor. It’s really bad when it’s an inmate I have to threaten, because he usually starts laughing. Luckily, once he’s doubled over holding his sides, that’s an excellent time to knee jab him in the face.

So I’m amassing an entire collection of words that sound just cute as a button but that can really screw you up in a monumental way. Darkle is a cute word, because it sounds like a nice word an older person might say instead of “urinate.” It really only means to make something darker, but if I were going to darkle you, it would be by using my mind powers to take away your eyesight. Dark now, isn’t it?

Another great one is quisle. Quisle (quiz-ul, not qwy’le, we’re not Celts) means to betray you in a terrible way. Can’t you just see the Godfather bringing in someone and having him shot right there in front of him, but first telling him, “You have quisled me. You quisled the whole family. I bring you in, I take care of you, and you repay me by quisling me? Make him disappear.”

And the mac-daddy cute-but-badassest word of them all, extirpate. It means to kill you. I completely picture my middle-aged soccer mom self, all five and a half feet of me, looking the gigantic bad guy in the face and saying, “I’m gonna extirpate you like no one has ever been extirpated before!” I totally envision my little fists on my hips when I say that.

Hopefully he will pass out from lack of air while doubled over laughing at me.