So They Say…

Dear Solitary Reader,

The world of proverbs is an interesting place. It’s difficult to tell what will end up as a proverb and what will be tossed by the way side as nothing more than verbal diarrhoea (such as much of what I say).

For those of us who are of literal mind some of the proverbs in frequent use today don’t make any sense; the following is a small treatise on some of those.

You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat it Too.  This was a favourite saying of my mothers and because I was an antagonistic little bastard, I had fun riling her up about it. “What’s the point of having cake,” past Me would say “if you can’t have it. It will just go bad. And then you have bad cake. Then you’d have to throw it out. And you would have no cake and have not gotten to eat any too.”

“That’s not the point!” Mom would say, “You can’t HAVE your cake and EAT it TOO!’ Logic and my mother were often infrequent acquaintances and when she needed to make her point she went for volume rather than diction. My Mom was awesome, and if you’re reading this from up above Mom, I always knew what the saying meant – I was just being an antagonistic little bastard.

That being said, in this scenario cake is the wrong focal point. What child would understand the concept of having a piece of cake and not touching it? Willpower does not exist to a 7 year old (unless they turn it into an action figure and it becomes a He-man sidekick).

Suggested Amendment: Once you use something it’s gone.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Bee Holder I never got this one. Who would be dumb enough to hold a bee? And if you’re holding a bee you’re not going to be paying attention to any chick that walks by (unless she has an Epi-pen and you’re allergic to the bee you’re holding – in which case why would you be holding a bee anyway? Are you filming a YouTube video? That’s stupid – you could die – put down that bee!?)

Suggested Amendment – No suggestions this one’s just too stupid.

Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater Okay, this seems like common sense and it’s scary that it got repeated enough to become a proverb.

Suggested Amendment: Wait MY BABY!

When you least expect it… expect it. This is more of a threat than a proverb but still it doesn’t make much in the way of sense. If someone said that to me I’d be like: “What you talkin’ bout Willis?”

Because if someone told me to expect it when I least expect it then I’d be walking down the street on a sunny day in Movember and I’d stop, and the guy behind me would bang in to me because I stopped suddenly, but I wouldn’t notice that because I’d be thinking: “Hey, that dude told me to expect it when I’m least expecting it. So now I’m expecting it.” And at that point the assailant would be like: “Ah, damn, he’s expecting it now! Oh well, maybe tomorrow.” Really, if you expect it when you least expect it then you’re no longer least expecting it, so it cancels itself out.

In this pessimistic age perhaps we should be saying: “It will come when you expect it.” Because as Yoda points out: Expectation leads to Hope, Hope leads to Disappointment, Disappointment leads to Anger, Anger leads to Fear and Fear Leads to the Dark Side (he did too, its in the unabridged version of Star Wars).

Suggested Amendment: When you’re not paying attention I’m going to stab you with this fork.

There are plenty of sayings, and plenty of them don’t make sense. Some of them do mind you. Oddly however, one proverb is “Familiarity breeds contempt” and because these proverbs are looked at as clichés, which are overly familiar, no one pays attention to them. So whatever good they might do is lost because no one’s paying attention.

So what I suggest you do is find another way to say the same things these and other proverbs are saying and remember to move when the metal’s glowing (see? That’s Strike While the Iron’s Hot right there).

Sincerely,

Me