What I've Been Reading Instead of Cleaning My House

Friday, November 30, 2007

Small Joys III: The Last Crusade

This is the last post in my month of gratitude. What a joy it has been to sit back and reflect on all the things I'm thankful for. It's been surprising how many simple things bring a smile to my face. One of my favorites are the small phrases that become part of my every day vocabulary because of people I've met or situations I've experienced. Here are a few:

ALL MY MAKEUP FELL IN THE TOILET THIS MORNING -- code for "I'm going to change the subject." This comes from a friend of a friend who could never keep up with the topic of conversation and would just say the strangest out of the blue things. This is especially comical because Nigel says it all the time (much to the shock of people who don't know what it means).

PLEASE PASS THE RIPLEY and WHAT DO YOU MEAN DID YOU WIN THOSE CLOTHES? -- code for "I misunderstood what you said." "Please pass the Ripley" comes from my brother, Spence, who misunderstood when his son said "Please pass the syrup, please" (we also now refer to syrup as "Ripley"). The other phrase comes from when I misunderstood my father asking "Are the windows closed" to my mother and I thought he said, "Did you win those clothes?"

SPACKY HAND -- referring to when your hand suddenly spazzes out and you drop something or accidentally hit something. This comes from Sister Spackman who had an unfortunate arm-to-industrial scone mixer encounter and would occasionally lose control of her hand (which was great because she was the ward organist and we would wait in anticipation for a "Spacky Hand" moment).

DO YOU THINK I CAN TOUCH MY KNEE TO THE CEILING? -- said before doing something very stupid that's sure to result in bodily harm. This comes from my sister, Rena, who was jumping on the bed and touching various body parts to the ceiling -- her head, her ear, her tongue, etc. Then she had the bright idea of touching her knee to the ceiling. She jumped as hard as she could and unfortunately didn't realize that her head would impact the ceiling way before her knee would.

HAPPY NEW YORK -- code for any English phrase horribly mangled on a consumer product because it was made overseas. This includes "Spoopy" book bags and "Winnie The Puff" stuffed animals.

9 comments:

Geo said...

These are GREAT! I'm sad to see November go—you've produced a month of excellent gratitude posts. Got a theme for December yet?

Lois said...

GEO -- the Christmas season is great for consumerism posts! I can't wait!

Am'n2Deep said...

Still laughing...

You are great fun!

dalene said...

Oh my gosh. I'm laughing so hard I can't see. I think you're hysterical.

Lois said...

AM-N2DEEP -- yeah, I'm sure that everyone has their little "code phrases." Too funny.

CW -- love the new avatar!

rena said...

My kids think that spacky is a real word. And they love to tell there friends the knee to the ceilling story, only because it happened when I was 21!

Lois said...

RENA -- glad to see that "Spacky Hand" is catching on.

Whenever I tell a good Rena story, Nigel always has to ask, "And how old was she when she did this?" Because you should be 9 or 10 when you do these things, but you're always 21 or 22!!! Too funny.

Rynell said...

Hee hee! These made me laugh!

Lois said...

RYNELL -- glad you enjoyed them!