Wednesday Words

Every family has them.

Those sayings from a memorable occasion, story or joke, movies watched way too many times, or handed down from grandparents. The ones where you get looked at strangely if you use them among coworkers absentmindedly. Trying to fall asleep again at 4am, I found myself thinking about this.

"So, I took the $50,000 and bought birdseed for the canary"  and "I see, said the blind man" were used by one grandmother, Mama B.  Meaning=?

Mama O had some that were more, pithy, shall we say, and my mother used the more kid-friendly ones a lot. A fresh mouthed "so what?" would get "Sew buttons on a grasshopper's fly" and if we kept it up, "I'll give you back to the Indians" (which conjured up visions of cartoon braves lurking at the edge of the woods, waiting for me). 

More whining or crying might get us "Choke, chicken, there's more a-hatchin' ". Harsh.

Of course, our kids heard all of those and a favorite of J's mother; "Go play outside and blow the hamburg smell off ".

TV shows contributed a lot too: "What is it girl? Timmy's in the well?!" which we enjoy saying to our dogs, who don't think it's funny. And "one of these things is not like the others" which is usually sung, of course.  "I'm  peckish" (from the early computer game Sheep in Space) to indicate hunger has garnered a few weird looks. {and garner is a pretty strange word too}.

 I don't really have a point to this meandering and the dogs want to go out, so I'll wrap this up suddenly. The end.