JOI's father's garage monologue (p. 167)
Things were different when I was growing up, Jim. I hate… Jesus I hate saying something like this, this things-were-different-when-I-was-a-lad-type cliché shit, the sort of cliché fathers back then spouted, assuming he said anything at all. But it was. Different.
Context
Deep in the flask now, the father catches himself committing a cliché and stops to loathe it out loud before recommitting to it anyway. A man for whom the worst humiliation available mid-confession is a stock phrase — diction-vanity as the last thing to drown. The verbal fastidiousness Hal inherits at double concentration, seen failing its original owner.