Our Lives as Idioms

This morning, I attended the crew’s Open House in their school.  The Open House is a period where parents visit the school to see all that their children had done during the school year.  It usually holds towards the end of the school year and usually in the evening.  Well, this year, they decided to host it in the morning, which was totally inconveniencing.  As a parent, who had no choice but to attend, I was there and proud to see all the girls have achieved in fourth grade.

As the girls proudly took me through all they had on display, we came to an “Idiom” board.  Here the children used idioms to form stories. Out of curiosity, and really to assess if they could confidently talk about what they were showing me, I asked “What is this all about?”  “Mom, these are Idioms!” Came the sharp response from Iyi.  “Idioms are words that writers use to make their writings more interesting.  An example is, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’.  This means, the rain is very heavy”.  Hmmm….  That was me receiving a lecture on idioms from my ten year old baby.  Wonders…………..

Well, I was very impressed and decided to get some fun idiom stuff for us to do together.  Well, I found this funny story that I am sharing with you, as well as a brief history of some idioms that we commonly use.

Story

One day when it was raining cats and dogs, my best bud stuck her foot in her mouth and spilled the beans about her main squeeze. She’s always had loose lips but this time she really talked my arm off about her sugar daddy.

It seems he’d had his nose to the grindstone for months till he finally popped a cork and went on the lam from work. He hot-footed it to the local watering hole and really tied one on. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail he wound up three sheets to the wind. I mean drunk as a skunk.

The next thing you know, someone ticked him off and like a bull in a china shop he wiped the floor with the guy – totally cleaned his clock. Of course, he didn’t know the guy from a hole in the wall, but it turns out the guy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and is all but joined at the hip with the son of Sugar Daddy’s boss.

Are you getting the big picture here?

At this point in time, I’m about to blow off- the whole shooting match cause I just can’t quite get my arms around this- walk in the park. But my girlfriend is becoming a real basket case over the whole can of worms. So even though it sounds all out of whack, I let her rattle on bending my ear with this cock and bull story.

Well, to make a long story short, Sugar Daddy finds his heart in his mouth when he sees what a pickle he’s in. So he grabs his cell phone and calls his flavor of the month (my friend) and starts crying in his beer about how he’s going to be toast if she doesn’t hustle her bustle over there and help him put some lipstick on the pig before the police throw him in the pokey.

Now, I have to admit, she’s a little wet behind the ears, otherwise she would have known that he was feeding her a line. But no, she swallows it hook, line and sinker. She throws caution to the wind and lays rubber all the way across town to rescue a drunk who’s dumber than a stump.

When she walked in the bar, the victim was still out cold and she actually thought he had kicked the bucket – you know, bought the farm. But she got him on his feet and paid through the nose for a cab to take him home. Then she and Sugar Daddy took a powder before the cavalry arrived.

But here’s the icing on the cake. The next day, Sugar Daddy hands my friend the green weenie! That’s right. He says he needs some space, wants to consider his options, and thinks they should cool it.

Well, I tried to soft peddle it for my friend’s sake, but she really kissed the pooch on this one. I should have just put my cards on the table and told her that’s what happens when you wear your heart on your sleeve. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Oh well, that’s how the cookie crumbles.

What we decide to do was for each person to highlight all the idioms that could identify in the story and whoever finds the most, wins!  I have to admit that I did not win.  So why not try and have some fun looking for idioms in the story.  Below are some interesting origins behind idioms that we use all the time.

Origin

Fly off the handle: In the days before mass merchandising, poorly fastened axe heads would fly off while they were in use. The result was dangerous; hence why the phrase is used to describe risky behavior with unpredictable results.

Steal someone’s thunder: In the early 1700s, English dramatist John Dennis invented a device that imitated the sound of thunder for a play he was working on. The play flopped. Soon after, Dennis noted that another play in the same theater was using his sound-effects device. He angrily exclaimed, “That is my thunder, by God; the villains will play my thunder, but not my play.” The story got around London, and the phrase was born.

Chew the fat: Originally a sailor’s term this phrase refers to the days before refrigeration when ships carried food that wouldn’t spoil. One of them was salted pork skin, which consisted largely of fat. Sailors would only eat it if all other food was gone… and they often complained as they did. This idle chatter became known as “chewing the fat.”

Well, that I have “let the cat out of the bag”, I hope you won’t let “a cat get your tongue” but tell others about it.  Our Lives really is an idiom.  Until next week, by His grace, don’t be so wet behind the ear that you take on everything swallows it hook, line and sinker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!