Not actually a shower thought; this occurred while waiting in line to cross the border from Canada back to the US. In fact, I had a double “I told you so” for my wife in that line, and she clearly knew it. The past 3 years we’ve visited my wife’s parents over the holidays but I’ve always said I want to get back across the border before New Year’s Day in part because traffic would be better, but this year with the dates she convinced me and insisted we never have to wait at Champlain so it would be fine. As we approached the border and message signs announced waits exceeding an hour I had my first one. Then as we were waiting in line I noticed there was basically no line for the NEXUS lane, which I’ve been pushing for years but she felt we didn’t need because the application sounded complicated and “we never have to wait” at border crossings.
Second best: telling your former boss to do a full rip and replace of their ERP system (they didn’t, bad things happened) and now they’ve hired you as a consultant to advise on the implemention if the new ERP system at $20k/month.
OOF, cheers and well done homie! That’s delicious.
I’m going to guess erp doesn’t mean “erotic role play” here but maybe you had a niche job.
Enterprise resource planning. No too much erotic about it. Probably for the best…
Not saying anything is more gracious, anyway, and saves an argument from touching a sore spot.
Yeah, but you gotta look smug.
“Oh, me? I didn’t say anything!”
“You know damn well what you want to say! Go ahead! Say it! Say what you want!”
“I’m sure I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
With your nose in the air, and a grin on your face.
“Heavens to betsy, I do declaire the wait at this border is quite high, wouldn’t you saaaaaaaay dear?”
I don’t know why I envision you, regardless of gender, transitioning more and more into a victorian era elitist woman.
Wearing one of those big poofy dresses that gets real skinny at the waist, but then balloons at the hips, like there’s a hula hoop under her dress. That sort of thing.
😂 I’m working on taming my inner beasts. I imagine it’s a lifetime endeavor (and I also imagine for some, excessive humility can be a wild beast).
Those skirts did have hoops! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_skirt
Oh my god…it’s like I’m looking at the skirts BONES!!! It looks so weird. It IS so weird!!! Why did they invent this???
Funny you should say that - as a matter of fact, whale bone was frequently used in women’s dresses and corsets back in those times.
According to the wiki, to keep heavy skirts and petticoats away from the body so they weren’t as hot, corsets, bustiers, girdles and heels are other torture devices are mind-boggling. I understand brasseries, though.
I’ve become more and more empathetic with age, to the point where I sometimes feel bad about being correct and in a “told you so” situation. It’s weird. I have found myself couching it with like, “well it was confusing, and I get why you thought it was X” or, “Oh wow, I thought I was wrong and you were right. That’s surprising actually,” or whatever, to soften the blow.
I think what it comes down to is: I don’t want to make a person feel bad for being wrong about something because that’s how you learn. I probably overcorrect a bit though…
I know how it feels for people to both humiliate and give grace, when I was wrong, so giving grace feels weird at a time, when we’re socialized to abuse (noun, verb, take your pick), but it feels so good when equilibrium is retained or restored, from that grace.
Balance is tricky, because we’re all individuals in a collective with our own wounds to navigate.
I’m usually more interested in what they learned than rubbing their face in it.
Like, are they going to listen to me next time or are we going to keep having this problem?
imagine waiting at borders
EU member: borders?
This weird thing that falls apart between countries because it’s not in active use
I think that’s those places where the asphalt changes quality and the streetlights start to look different.
Ah! Like crossing from Alabama into Mississippi! LOL, even the interstate turns to shit in MS.
Tbh this is mostly a yank thing. If you come to my country it’s a quick glance at the passport, 2 or 3 questions and a “Bienvenido.”
The worst ones are when they say “I told you so, but what am I?”
That’s not even the right PHRASE!
I love botched idioms so much. “It’s not rocket surgery” is my go to, but the best ones are unintentional (and completely torture the original).
Best I’ve heard lately was on the air, local NPR affiliate, and the unfortunate lass said something, complimenting I think a film director, saying “He’s hitting all cylinders at just the very top level”.
(The original is “firing on all cylinders”, which just describes an internal combustion engine working properly and not suffering from that particular degradation, cylinders misfiring. Hitting them, anywhere, let alone “at the top level”, is utter nonsense and it was delightful to me, she flat out abused that idiom)
Edit to add: some related favs which aren’t quite botched idioms but which kinda “rhyme” with the idea - both meaning “okay, time to get the thing done”:
- “let’s kick this puppy” (given to me by a particularly influential teacher)
- “let’s shake this baby” (my own personal creation, occurred to me while getting my kiddo ready for one thing or another)
- (these having the same flow as e.g. “let’s knock this out”, “let’s blow this taco stand”, etc.)
ENTIRELY possible that this exact line is what sent me down the path of noticing and loving tortured idioms. And I forgot all about it, so thanks!!
You would love some of the “Fick-isms” from the Arisen book series.
“Hey! If you put your dirty dick beaters on her again I’m gonna light you on fire and put it out with a fork!”
Color me intrigued!
Its a zombie apocalypse book series following the last of the spec ops operators in the world as they hit hot zones and try to piece together the elements of the cure the world was working on before everywhere but the UK was overrun.
The Audiobook is particularly good.
My favorite recently was when a friend said, “Reap the fruit of my loins”.
So, like, labor and delivery?
Offered to take my adult kids to the beach -we will rent a pet-friendly house that’s big enough for everyone if you get your dog fixed before we go; we don’t want to be dealing with dog in heat at a beach house.
We booked the house. The dog did not get fixed. They came anyway but left a day early because…yep, the dog went into heat.
About an hour after they left, son called - “Wow! That immigration checkpoint was not as quick and easy as you described it!”
Apparently, standing on the side of the road with a pocketful of weed while your wife holds the dog and feds search your car can be unsettling.
“Sir, do you know why our dog alerted on your car?”
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having to wait 1h at border is a lot? you’d perish in eastern europe
Wait, what? People wait at the border?
Normally, you just drive through without thinking about it. Later, you realize from the traffic signs that you must already be in the other country, and you missed the border again.
i mean external schengen zone border
Oh, outside civilization…
I realized I’d inadvertently crossed into Switzerland due to a wrong turn when my rental car’s navigation system alerted me to the fact. Whoops.
Papers, please.
Went 4 wheeling with my friends years ago. Driver pulls up to the bottom of one of the hills, looking up you can see the lip at the top comes out forward a bit, meaning if you drove over it, your vehicle would end up upside down.
Tell my friend “You ain’t getting up that. And I’m not sitting back here when you try and getting crushed when you fucking flip over, dumbass.” He and our other friend keep arguing it won’t flip, it’s fine.
I get out, he and my other friend started pushing up the hill… They get about half-way and the fucking axel/driveshaft (long pole part under the car that gives 4 wheel drive IDK what it’s called) breaks, they lose power and control, brakes aren’t helping in the loose dirt, come back down the hill and slam into a walnut tree in the orchard at the bottom.
“I told you you weren’t getting up that hill!”
“And I told you we wouldn’t flip over!”
