#042 In which our hero has words for you.

I'm a word guy. That is to say, I enjoy words. Not just big, complicated words, but every day words that are used well. I especially enjoy a nice turn of phrase. Which leads me to eating a bag of dicks.

I came across that phrase while reading a Web site today. Now, the author of this site said the phrase makes her want to throttle someone (by the way, isn't "throttle" a great word? Much better in this case than just "choke"). But I read "eat a bag of dicks" and laughed out loud. It's not put into context on the site, but I'm assuming she means it to be used as an insult, as in "why don't you go eat a bag of dicks?!" Hard to image that it would be a compliment... "Hey! You look great! Did you just eat a bag of dicks?"

Anyway, it made me think of some of my favorite phrases. Which, being that I love you all so much, I thought I'd share.

"Dumb as a box of rocks." I know, it's not original, but I still think it's hilarious. Probably because I remember the exact moment I heard it for the first time. I was working in a restaurant kitchen, and a co-worker used it to describe one of the waitresses. "Box of rocks?" I asked. "Yeah," he replied, "You know, satchel of mallets? Bag of tacks?" Naturally, he was, at the time (as he was all the time) stoned.

"Blick." The Scientist invented this word, far as I can tell. It's an expression of disgust; a combination of "blah" and "ick." Almost always used to describe the taste of something she doesn't like. "It's blick," or sometimes, "blicky."

"Pryke" Another word I picked up from the wife, this one coined by a former co-worker of hers. It's a terrible person, a jerk. Combination of "prick" and... something else. "Dyke," maybe? However, it's always been applied to men. A true mystery.

"Shit the bed." Perhaps my favorite phrase of all time, again, picked up from the wife. Not only is shitting the bed a truly horrible situation, it's the perfect phrase to describe something that goes horribly wrong. "I thought you were playing Starcraft?" "I was, but the computer shit the bed and I had to reboot." In our house, it's always applied to something involving technology - more often than not the computer - but could work equally well with, well, anything. "The interview was going well but it shit the bed when I mentioned my felony record." We have also used in on one occasion to describe our daughter, but it that case it was meant in a completely literal fashion.

I'm sure there's more, and this doesn't even begin to cover the countless movie and TV references sprinkled in damn near every conversation. But I gotta go before my pryke of a boss catches me not working.