Or perhaps “Learn to look in the right place.” As in, “If you didn’t bake the dough, why would you expect to find cooked cake there, dummy?”
These kind of make you wonder about what cultural references we’re just completely missing. I’m guessing at least a few key ones are agricultural.
I’ll bet it’s something like if you want a cake, you’d better bake some dough, it isn’t going to bake itself.
That’s why you need the Wunder Boner!
How about a “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”? The dough is not yet baked, so don’t even think about having something fancy with cake.
-or-
You have to do the work before getting the goodies. First bake the dough, then think about getting the cake.
This seems like a broken snippet of ancient pornography:
More proverbs relating to family:
Hmm.
This sounds a bit…scary?
My mother …… offering; she is behaving as though she were my slave-girl.
Some of my favorites:
My things changed things.
One does not return borrowed bread.
In the city where there are no dogs, the fox is boss.
May Inana make a hot-limbed wife lie with you! May she bestow upon you broad-shouldered sons! May she seek out for you a happy place!
Let me tell you about my fate: it is an insult. Let me explain it to you: it is a disgrace.
If a scribe knows only a single line but his handwriting is good, he is indeed a scribe!
The fox, having urinated into the sea, said: “The depths of the sea are my urine!”
That, or young men shouldn’t suppose that women don’t fart. Or believe that getting romantic somehow keeps farts away. The two things will coencide at some point.