Lots of attention has been given to getting in touch with one’s "inner child." It is the part of you that is impulsive, creative, fun-loving, and silly. It can also be foolish, selfish, whiny, and irresponsible, so the trick is to let your "inner child" come out when he’s needed and let the "inner parent" or "inner adult" take over the rest of the time.

This got me thinking; what other kind of "inner" folks are lying around in my head? Certainly those three can’t cover the whole range of my thoughts and emotions. Here’s what I came up with:

The Inner Bastard:
This is the guy who laughs when old ladies fall over, their beehive wigs shifting on their heads at an angle beyond jaunty. He’s the voice you hear when someone says something stupid; he’s saying, "mock that moron! Put him down!" The Inner Bastard is the one who wants to sue when you foolishly try to remove the lid from your McDonalds coffee as you’re entering the on-ramp; his domain is your gain through other people’s pain.

The Inner Santa:
That’s the voice that’s always telling you to get that kid to sit on your lap and tell you what he wants for Christmas.

The Inner Neil Diamond:
He’s the part of you that remembers lyrics to crappy songs and sometimes makes you hum them or sing them out loud when you think you’re alone. The Inner Neil Diamond is bad.

The Inner Baboon:
The Inner Baboon is the part of you that thinks your chances of getting laid will be increased if you drop trou and publicly display your ass; and as far as that goes, according the Inner Baboon, the Redder the Better!

The Inner Tomfool:
This guy’s just out to get you in trouble. He’s like your conscience; he always knows what’s right and wrong, but unlike your conscience he wants to see what happens when you do the wrong thing. This is the voice that tells you to pick your nose at an intersection; no one will see you. Greg Brady had a problem with his Inner Tomfool, who told him to invite two girls to dinner on the same night and just keep switching tables.

The Inner Ponch:
Wants you to wear mirrored sunglasses and meticulously arrange your hair all the time. The Inner Ponch is not all bad; he can be very charismatic, and can be used to gain success with the opposite sex. Or the same sex.

The Inner Pete Rose:
He thinks you should slide head-first. Right now. Whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re going, you should be doing it with a head-first slide.

The Inner Speed Racer:
He wants you to drive fast all the time. He also wonders why you don’t have gadgets in your "Mach V." Your Inner Speed Racer will sometimes get punched by your Inner Racer X, leaving your sense of adventure unconscious for a while, but no more than 10 to 20 minutes later he’ll wake up again, even more determined to drive fast.

The Inner Racer X:
He is the one looking out for your inner Speed Racer. He is secretly an older brother who is very loving and just wants you to be safe, but he’s really a bummer because if it were up to him you would never get in any adventures. Sometimes he’ll help you against the Acrobat Team, though, and although no one really says it, we all think our Inner Racer X is a little cooler than our Inner Speed Racer.

The Inner Spork:
The part of you that thinks you were designed to do everything, even though you’re not really that good at anything because you’re made of plastic and your tines are too short and you can’t hold much soup.

The Inner Armpit-face:
This is a very critical voice who tells you that your face is uglier and smellier than an armpit and that you should grow hair on it to hide what an armpit you have for a face. Men with beards and mustachioed women may have a problem with their Inner Armpit-face.

The Inner Goat Fucker:
If you’ve ever gone to a petting zoo, chances are the Inner Goat Fucker gave you a couple of suggestions.

The Inner Frat Boy:
This voice thinks you should do really dumb shit a lot. If you’ve ever had the urge to stick your finger up another guy’s ass and then suck on it, you have an Inner Frat Boy voice. He may sound a lot like the Inner Goat Fucker.