Like all families we employ time-honored phrases that seem nonsense to others:

“Don’t go crazy, Sue!” My cousin’s husband, a real doofus, employed this when he really messed up, intending to temper her reaction. example: He backed over the dog after she’d told him it had slipped out. It didn’t calm her down a bit.

“I don’t like what I wanted.” My three year-old-niece had a quarter. She’d been hounding her mom all morning to take her to the store. Finally, the time came. Chelsea ran up to the vending machine outside the store , popping her quarter in before Mom could stop her. Out popped a tacky little plastic car. Furious with disappointment , smashed it to the ground. Mom chided her. “I thought you wanted a prize out of the machine!”

Chelsea spouted back, “I don’t LIKE what I wanted.”

That phrase is perfect for so many of our choices in life!

“It couldn’t be helped.” Mother is a ditz, scatterbrained and chronically behind in whatever she had to do. When the beans burned, she forgot to pick a kid up at basketball practice, forgot to stub a check, or messed up in any way, she justified it by saying, “It couldn’t be helped.”. This was rarely true.

“It’s starting to get some better.”. Daddy was a hypochondriac.  When he managed a malady, he clung to it tenaciously. About two weeks after wasps stings, Mother facetiously asked how it was.  Mistaking her sarcasm for concern, he replied, “It’s starting to get some better.”

“The head’s as dangerous as the rest of it!”. My sister was warning us to stay away from a decapitated snake.  “Stay away from that snake head!  It’s as dangerous as the rest of it!” Duh!

“Only fools f___s with snakes.”. A guy Bud worked with coined this wisdom.  Since we had little kids at the time we had to amend it.

” I salted it, but not enough.”. Mother was the master of confusion.  Putting a plates of eggs on the table one morning, she advised us, ” I salted them, but not enough.”. Where do you go from there?  Salt or don’t salt.  By the time you decide, your egg’s half gone.