SPARKLING CONVERSATION

In daily conversation, do you often find yourself groping for just the right phrase? Yer listener hangs politely, mouth agape in wild anticipation of some profound description. You say, “Yessir! That rain we got yesterday was as welcome as . . . welcome as . . .” After a long pause, you finish the sentence with that moldy old expression “. . . the flowers in May!” Wow!

Wouldn’t you feel better if you had thought of “welcome as the ace of spades in a hand of lo-ball poker!” or “welcome as nine yards of gravel in a muddy driveway!” We have developed several standard descriptions for “dumb as . . .”; “nervous as . . .”; “cold as . . .”; “sleepin’ like a . . .”; “happy as . . .”; and “crazy as. . . .” We can all fill in the blanks with assorted posts, churchgoers, well diggers, babies, clams, and loons. But if you really want to be known as a scintillating conversationalist, you need to come up with some phrases that are a little more offbeat:

“Hot as a seat cover on a Phoenix Fourth of July!”
“Flat as an armadillo on a Texas highway!”
“Nervous as Jell-O on a vibratin’ bed!”
“It was so cold, I saw two coyotes tryin’ to start
a jackrabbit with jumper cables!”
“It was so hot, I saw a dog chasin’ a cat and they
were both walkin’!”
“It was so dry down home, we had to pin on our
postage stamps!”
“Popular as a pink Cadillac salesman at a
Mary Kay convention!”
“Safe as a side of bacon at a bar mitzvah!”
“Happy as a cattlefeeder with an optimistic broker!”
“Handy as a zipper on a banana!”

 

Sometimes descriptive phrases can have a less than flattering connotation:

“Handy as a pocket in yer underwear!”
One of my employers said that havin’ me help was
like havin’ two good men . . . not show up!
“Cute as a cancer-eye cow!”
“He worships the people she walks on!”
“The committee had all the wisdom and insight
of a band of Suffolk bucks!”
“Tasty as hair in the gravy!”
When two unlikable people find each other and
get married, it only demonstrates that “one good
dog deserves another!”
“He needs another car like a tumbleweed needs
a telephone, like a frog needs an earring, or like
a cowboy needs a checking account!”