Metaphors

This afternoon I was as busy as a mouse in the bottom of a barrel of hungry cats. I mentioned that phrase to one of my customers this afternoon and he was amused.

When I finally got home and was getting ready for dinner (driving the Lovely Miss Carol to the Chinese Buffet), we got to talking about the fellow down in Austin who decided to run his airplane into the side of the IRS building. We couldn't decide if he was crazier than a loon, a few bricks shy of a load or a few french fries short of a Happy Meal. The debate went on for at least the 20 minutes it took to drive up to McKinney, but it did spark a conversation about colloquialisms which spilled through dinner and occupied our minds until almost bedtime.

Busy as a mouse in the bottom of a barrel of hungry cats is a phrase I had learned used by a colorful auto writer about 50 years ago to describe some automaker's success with a particular model. The phrase is very akin to "busier than a one legged man at a butt kicking contest" or "busy as a one armed paper hanger with the hives". Either of those sound mighty busy indeed, perhaps even "busier than a bumblebee at a flower show". Too busy, though, and one wouldn't know whether to "s*** or go blind"!

We have words of wisdom for just about any occasion. I got into a conversation the other day about the $2 bill that my daughter Sarah had handed to her as she was attending the till at her job as a Starbuck's "Barrista". I was under the impression that the Black community used the $2 bill as a statement of Black involvement in the economy. The person I was conversing with said the contrary. He was brought up to view the $2 bill as a sham, the operative term being "as phoney as a $2 bill". Quite truthfully, I had had the impression that the phrase was "as phoney as a $3 bill". Adjusting for inflation, no doubt.

The other phrase involving the $3 bill is the standby "as queer as a $3 bill", usually used as a slur against a gay person. The more modern version is quite a bit more tolerant and almost as descriptive: "As gay as a May Pole". I do know people who are as gay as a May Pole and none of them has, at least as of yet, noted that the saying is the least bit offensive. Again, the saying came from my daughter, Sarah who has used the phrase to describe a very good friend of hers... and in front of him, too.

I'm not quite up to speed about some of the sayings used by my children and my various nieces and nephews... I'm not the brightest crayon in the box as far as that's concerned. Nor am I the brightest bulb in the firmanent. There are lots of phrases used these days which elude me as to their meaning. The terms "homey" or "home boy" elude me. Marge Simpson calling her Homer "Homey" includes some sort of "in" joke which I don't fully understand. The joke goes right over my head. I'll laugh anyway, even if I don't understand because The Simpsons makes me happy as a "pig in mud" (or as I first heard it, "a pig in s***).

What I do understand is cold weather and some of the sayings which go with the lower temperatures. How about "cold as a witch's broomstick" which is much more polite than "cold as a witch's left teat in a brass bra". One of my College professors (Joe Berman) used to start out his lectures on cold days by telling us to can the brass monkey jokes and get down to business... as a reference to the standby "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"... a phrase which the internet tells me relates to stacking iron cannon balls on a specially made brass plate called a monkey which has nothing to do with a monkey's hangey down parts.

Wait a few months and it will be "hotter than a $2 pistol" around here, unless what one is talking about is a very good basketball player in February. Perhaps that basketball player would be that way due to playing a "barn burner". Ah, the colorful metaphors used by sports announcers.

Or the metaphors used by or about politicians. Ask him and he'll tell you that he is as honest as the day is long... except, perhaps in the dead of winter. His opponent is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. If I was the dog, I would be offended.

Anyhoo, all good conversations come to an end. Carol and I got home, made a few notes and before I could put this rant and rave to bed, she went out like a light while I finished.

Be Seeing You!