Foolproof way to stop cussing

I had to replace a ball-valve shutoff and install a 3/4" copper line from the TPR valve on my water heater at my project house today, which gave me the idea behind today's topic....

During my wife's first pregnancy, I went on a business trip to Austin where I met with a few customers and shared the great news that we were expecting. During a conversation over a few Shiners, the topic of "cleaning up your speech" came up. One of my customers shared the story about how he and his wife realized that they needed to watch their language when their daughter's first word was f&$%. So upon my return home, my wife and I took an inventory of our lives to see how "kid friendly" it really was. We put the really annoying plastic things in the electrical sockets (not only are they baby-proof, but they're Dorkydad-proof as well), installed a baby gate at the top of our stairs, put bumper guards on the edge of our stone fireplace, and decided to try and stop cussing completely*.

There is a real art to cussing, and we both had gotten lazy in our speech. Cussing had become habit, and it had lost its significance.

Our first attempt to stop cussing was to dock ourselves a quarter with each cuss word, but after several days and $50+ later, we were no closer to curbing our speech than when we started.

Then my wife came up with a brilliantly annoying way to get us both to stop cussing: every time the cusser cusses, the "cussee" stops the conversation/exclamation immediately and says, ""Give me ten." That means the cusser has to stop whatever he was saying and think of ten other ways to say what he really meant to say.

For example, if I were to be cut off in traffic, the exchange may go as follows:

Me: I can't believe that blanking blank blanking cut me off! Blank!
Wife: Cussing foul. Give me ten.
Me: Blank!
Wife: You just earned yourself ten more!
Me: Okay...
1. I can't believe that subhuman cut me off. What a meanie!
2. That guy's driving really made me mad!
3. What moron gave that guy a driver's license?
etc.
10. Maybe that guy is rushing home to his wife who just went into labor. I'll try to show him a little bit of God's grace and forgive him right here and now. He knows not what he does.

(Okay, maybe that last one was a stretch, but my wife did notice a gradual softening of my words as I listed the ten "alternatives.") That's it! Simple, but effective. And very annoying.

*Plumbing, of course, is the universal exception and my family mostly just avoids me in these circumstances.