Me: “I’m coming”
Dad: “So’s Christmas”
Me: “So?”
Mom: “Sew butons on your underwear”
Me: “I’m a-scared”
Dad: “A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one”
Grandma used to tell us kids that she’d “jerk a knot in our tail” if we didn’t behave.
Oh yeah. When we would see some ill-behaved children in public, my Grandma would say “looks like thay ain’t had no proper yankin’ up!”
In our house it was “we’re off like a screaming herd of turtles”. I guess my father had to somehow make it his.
If we kids were impatient for something, we got: “hold onto your little pink panties”.
Why do they call it that, Daddy? “They hadda call it something so they called it Hadacol” (from some old ad about a patent remedy, I guess).
What’s that for, Daddy? “Cat for, to make kitten britches. Want a pair of doggy boots?”
By the way, we also got the “more X than Carter has pills”, but I don’t think Carter’s liver pills had anything to do with cod liver oil. My sister and I both took cod liver oil twice a day until we were teenagers, always followed by two quarters of an orange to take away the taste. Maybe it was the oil, maybe it was the oranges, but I attribute my robust good health to that particular regimen. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
Oh, yes, my aunt had an unusual one, when she wanted her kids to finish their meal and stop dawdling, she would say “hurry up and eat your plate!”
My mom says when she was little and causing trouble, her dad would tell her to stop it right now “or you’ll have to go to bed without your shoes on!”
Mom said he was so stern when he said it that it always scared her. I guess the implication was that you wouldn’t be just going for a nap. Of course, judging from my own experience, he could make anything sound scary to a little kid if he wanted to.
Oh, I was reminded of another one! Whenever we asked what something was, and my mom couldn’t or didn’t want to answer, she’d say it was “layovers for meddlers and crutches for lame ducks”. Never did figure out what that one meant!
My dad would say “Never get married and raise your kids the same way”. The way he said it made it funny, but understanding, now, what he meant - it seems sad.
On a lighter, if not bizarre, note…some friends of mine said their aunt would tell them "Go shit in your hat, pull it over your ears and tell your mother you’re sweatin’ ".
“And all for want of a horse shoe nail” was used if something was left out, with bad results. It’s taken from an old saying:
It was an admonishment to be more careful not to forget important items or steps. Sometimes they’d only quote the closing line, sometimes they’d say the whole thing.
Hmm, it should be “a shoe, a horse, a rider, a message, a battle, a war” respectively in that quote instead of “the shoe” etc. The saying also points out that little things can be important and affect the outcome of things too.