My childhood was decorated with a slew of family expressions. My father liked to say, “Well he really stuck his ass in a tub of butter,” which referred to a man who had an amazing stroke of luck. It typically referred to a guy who had married a wealthy woman, but when my father said it was without remorse or jealously but with a wry smile, since he knew that situation created its own challenges. Whenever my siblings and I were rough housing, particularly in the tight confines of a car ride, my father would say with a weary note of resignation, “it will end in tears.” Although he was inevitably correct, I always felt that a little tears were the price to pay for raucous fun. But I am probably biased, since as one of the older siblings, I was not the one crying. As a parent, I vowed never to say “It will end in tears,” and I actually came to look forward to crying as an universally recognized turning point – one could now easily say, “time to pick up,” time to get going,” “time to go to bed” – without feeling like the bad cop.
My mother had a series of expressions that were typically unleashed on the tennis court. “Hot spit” or “hotsy totsy” were used to celebrate clever winning shots. She would announce her weak second serve by yelling “Poopy one,” as she tossed the ball, or she would sing out “That was out by a whisker” for close calls. My mother had a Polish friend whom she taught both English and tennis, and it was always amusing to hear the same but slightly mangled jargon coming from across the net. “That was out by THE whisker,” Marya would yell.
But perhaps the most peculiar expression from my mother was “I’ll cut off your arm and beat you with the bloody end of it!” This was often said with her arm twirling around her head, so that the one could imagine a dripping, severed limb being used as a weapon. The utter viciousness and violence of this image did not even occur to me until adulthood, it was just one of those childhoold things that you just accepted and somehow assimilated. I am not really clear as to what my mother was trying to communicate. This was not said in anger, but somehow it came across as just good fun with only a tinge of authority. My mother was an “anything goes” mother, and I think that we afforded the same kind of leeway. I remember one time my brother was practicing one of those fake punches where you used your left hand to slap your chest to make a punching sound, while simultaneously feigning a real punch with your right hand. Well my brother’s timing went awry and he absolutely nailed my mother in the chin with his fist. Another time my brothers were playing hockey in the playroom. This game involved clearing all the furniture out and playing hockey on your knees with a small plastic hockey puck and abbreviated hockey sticks. My mother opened the door to see what was going on at the same time Tony unleashed a slap shot. Once again she got nailed in the chin. These might have been the instances where she would threaten beat us with a severed limb, but considering the circumstances, it seemed to be a wash.
Recently I vowed to create a family expression of my own. If you asked my kids they would roll their eyes and say our expression is “Be a problem solver!” While I wouldn’t argue with that, I wanted something more fun and truly unique. One evening I was sitting at a dinner honoring the board of directors of a small local club. The tradition was that in the awkward after dinner silence, someone would leap to their feet and start telling slightly off color jokes. This seemed to be a somewhat perilous task, as you had to tread that fine line between cutely smutty and downright tacky. The joke was particularly tricky for the club manager where the fine line between acceptable and tasteless was presumably even finer. As he launched into a long winded joke about camping, I could see him getting more nervous as he neared the punch line. He faltered a little bit as he tried a last minute salvage attempt to upgrade the joke. I don’t remember the details, but the punch line that was delivered to great acclaim and his visible relief had to do with “pleasuring the bear.” I nudged Nick and said, “that’s it – that our family expression!” The punch line has been transformed into our family expression for “its time to go,” i.e. if you are at a party and want to leave, you say “I think I have pleasured the bear.”
The missing words in the following poem are anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, post, stop) and the number of asterisks indicates the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with either the previous or following line. Your job is to solve the missing words based on the above rules and the context of the poem. Scroll down for answers.
All of our family trips in – – – – were punctuated with rough housing and a fight,
Wearily my father would say, “It will end in tears,” and of course he was always right.
When my mother hit cross court drop shots with their gently curving – – – – .
“Hot spit” and “hotsy totsy” were here famous celebratory remarks.
“I’ll cut off your arm and beat you with the bloody end of it” would – – – – most everyone,
But when my mother said it, it seemed like harmless loving fun.
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Cars, arcs, scar
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