Trending
The guy rattled on for some time before gushing, "Well, to make a long story short …"
Well, that ship had sailed.
"… what happened next'll will knock your socks off," he said.
You could bet the ranch that whenever this guy wrapped up his meandering monologue, my socks would remain firmly in place. But if one did blow off, I'd grab it and tell gabby to "put a sock in it."
I feared this guy would keep talking until the cows came home.
Where, I wondered, had the cows wandered? Why isn't anyone rounding them up? Instead, we kick up our heels and party down until the cows come home. In a manner of speaking.
What manner of speaking is this?
Oh yeah, they're called idioms. Expressions. The meanings of which aren't literal.
How, I wondered, had the idioms wandered into existence? What did they mean?
Why is a person with steady nerves considered "cool as a cucumber"? Does that mean the person is just lying in the dirt like a big, green lump?
Why is something easy a "piece of cake"?
Why does "head over heels" mean you've flipped for someone? Aren't our heads normally over our heels?
I suppose I can understand the admonition to "cool your heels," since maybe your feet do heat up when you run a lot. But "cool your jets"? Are there tiny turbos propped against my ankles?
Why is someone who kicked the bucket considered to be as dead as a doornail?
I lost my temper once and kicked a trash can. Had I kicked a bucket instead, would I have been reduced to the status of a doornail?
What is a doornail? Could a person be as dead as a roofing nail instead? And why are all those doornails running around buying the farms?
I paused from my reverie to see if my companion had dried up. Nope. He continued flapping his gums, talking a blue streak.
What, my wandering mind wondered, is a blue streak, and why does it talk so fast?
Should I be taking this story with a grain of salt? Mary Poppins claimed a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. So does a grain of salt make the gullibility factor give up?
When someone says it's raining cats and dogs, should I reach for the salt shaker? Or leashes and litter boxes?
How acrobatic does someone have to be to have his head in the clouds, his heart in his mouth next to the silver spoon he was born with, his tongue in his cheek, and wool pulled over his eyes? That sounds like someone who isn't playing with a full deck.
I surfaced from wonderings and wanderings when I detected my friend running out of steam. "… and that," he said, "is the whole matter in a nutshell."
More like in a whole case of nut shells. From a nut case.
That's what I screamed inside. What I said was, "Yep, the lights were on but nobody was home. That's how the cookie crumbles. They sure stole your thunder. The whole nine yards."
And then I ran. If he wound up for another story, I'd be stuck for a month of Sundays, donkey's years or until those wandering cows came home. Next time, I'd wander off with them.
— Pester Cole with idioms at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.