Enginerd & sibling: Mom, we’re thirsty!
Mom: You’re fine. Squiggle up some spit.
My father in law blames trouser geese.
Speaking of those kind of one liners, my mom would always say, “Do I need to take your pants down.” That was particularly embarrassing when out somewhere as it escalated on the implied spanking.
If you said “Hey” around my dad, he’d respond, “Is the first stage of horseshit.” He also used to say Meanwhile, back at the ranch house… and give his phone number as BR-549.
One of my best friends in high school had a dad who was full of one liners, but my favorite one (and the one that elicited the biggest groans from his kids) was the one he used whenever he was introduced to a friend of his kids’:
Son: Dad, this is my friend, Bo. Bo, this is my father, Hal.
Hal: Hello, Bo. I’m so glad you got to meet me.
(Son rolls eyes and groans while I crack up and give props to Hal.)
Do you want a thick ear?
Are you going to get up and join the land of the living?
Hard work never hurt anyone.
Sarcasm is the wit of fools.
Don’t become a statistic. (Relating to taking the car out.)
Every time we’d pass a cemetery, without fail, my dad would point it out and say “people are dying to get in there, you know”.
My father has A joke. Yes, the definitive article is appropriate, he really only has the one.
When it is raining he will say “I sure hope this rain keeps up”
A pause, when the sucker will say “Why?”
Dad in his very straight man voice. “So it won’t come down.” Big guffaws all around. This has been going on for years and years, like at least 50. (Mom remembers it from their dating days.) I love you Dad, but really, really lose the joke.
My dad uses “Like the rabbi said…”
One of us: “Where are you going, Dad?”
Dad: “Out for a short beer.”
Mom: “What kind of sandwich/cereal/etc do you want?”
One of us: “I don’t care.”
Mom: “I don’t care either.” And she didn’t give us one.
She also did the “I don’t know, can you?” thing, which drove my kids up a wall when I adopted it.
My mother had one that I never really figured out. “I excused one dog, and it died”. Anyone else heard it? Or understood it?
I quickly learned to never take the Sears and Roebuck catalog to my Father saying “I want”. The response was always “well, get the scissors”.
Did anyone else’ mother ever say “I’m going to mologize you?”
Not sure of the spelling, but that’s what it sounded like.
Probably “moiderize” (bastardization of “murderize”) from Old Timey Television. Either Loony Toons or The Honeymooners or something.
My old man educated me about Barking Spiders, Buck snorts, stepped-on ducks and other wonders of nature.
One of his “go-to” threats was, “I’ll kick your ass till your nose bleeds”. Very effective back then.
The all-time winner for me was his response to some stupid statement by my sister. She made some kind of crazy comparison or something, and he says with a straight face to two pre-teens, “Well, that was a pisspoor analagy”.
:D:smack:
Sure, he was right, but the whole point was lost on us. All we heard, and remembered from that exchange was the word “pisspoor”.
Dad was one-of-kind.
If one of us stood in front of the TV, my grandmother would always say, “you make a better door than a window!”
Any time one of my kids says “Go ahead” I say “don’t call me a goathead!”
Any time one of my brothers or I blocked the view of the TV, we’d be sure to hear, “You’re a pain (pane), but we can’t see through you.”
My father like to give places and people funny names, like “Marlon Branflakes” (Brando), “Pass-the-junk Avenue” (Passyunk, in Philly), “Sure-kill Crawlway” (Schuylkill Expressway – also in Philly), “horse-pistol” (hospital), etc.
I find myself saying these things now, even though he passed away over 30 years ago.
When one of us was crying: “Turn off the waterworks”.
Once, my little brother was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and crying. Dad hollered at him to turn off the waterworks; he misunderstood and reached to shut off the water, still crying of course. This struck me as incredibly funny. I laughed and got yelled at.
mmm
On long road trips - he would often say -
“hey - it’ll be here soon”
excited kids - “what”
“the great continental divide”
excited kids - "really, where? where "
“we just passed it - divided that side from this side”
He would invariably use it when going thru the mountains (between knoxville and the carolinas on i40) - so , it was easy to always think something exciting might be coming up.
When asked “are we there yet” - he would invariably respond “just an hour to go” - if pushed that he said that an hour ago - his response would be “I didn’t say which hour”.
Yeah - road trips were fun…
I make the person who does this one pay for it. I point out that unless he got his head shaved, it’s impossible to have all his hairs cut. The growth cycle of hairs means that some are too short to have been cut. Even a shave wouldn’t cut the ones that hadn’t yet re-emerged.
Throwing back stuff like this at people discourages them from using it again.
Other stuff from the family:
(In response to a wanting something.) “People in Hell want ice water.” Strangely said with a Southern drawl.
Another response to “Hey!” (as in “Hey, you!”). “Hay is for horses.” We were strongly discouraged from saying it. So much that to this day I cringe when people use “Hey.” for “Hi.” despite the different context.
Standard response to “Well …”, is “That’s a deep subject.” For “So what?” it’s “Sew buttons on your shirt.” Lot of those.
Mrs. FtG is famous for her lines. E.g., when something reeks, it’s “Bad enough to puke a buzzard off a gut wagon.” I think that’s supposed to be humor. Not to the stage yet to see if any of these are going to be passed down thru our kids.
And of course you know that the cemetery is the dead center of town.
Whenever we had to wait at a train crossing, my dad would say, “I saw U P on a train.”
Not really a one-line joke but more of a truism, from my maternal Grandmother:
Beauty’s only skin deep, but ugly’s to the bone.