Found this on Fark. It’s an article which talks about some of the “old sayings” and what would actually happen if they came true. For example, if every cloud had a silver lining, we’d all be poisoned by the contamination in the rain, and if a watched pot never boiled, our electric plants which use steam would be completely useless.
Got me to thinking, it did.
What if an apple a day really did keep the doctor away? The medical industry would collapse, resulting in economic chaos.
What if every dog did have his day? Mine would probably eat everything in the refrigerator, kill the neighbor’s cats and bite the postal carrier.
If people did have “hearts of gold”, they’d die in moments and their bodies would be plundered. We’d have to bring back “grave bombs” to keep people from being exhumed.
What if the cat really got your tongue, and what if it really rained cats and dogs?
What ones can you think of which would cause disastrous results if they were literally true?
Boys would be shambling monstrosities composed of slugs, snails and puppy dog tails; girls piles of sugar and spice, and either stuffed into jars or washed away in the next rain.
I know one of the physicists who was quoted in that article, Richard Berg. He was in charge of Physics is Phun at the University of Maryland. I have many, many happy memories of volunteering for Physics is Phun…
I once read a short story by Roald Dahl (I think) about a girl who had a bunch of aunts who were fairies or witches or something. Everything they said on her birthday cards came literally true. The year that they wished her pink skies every morning, it rained every day for a year. Another year, they wished that she would make a new friend every day, so by the end of the year, she had 365 very overbearing friends who wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace. Then, for her 20th birthday, they wished that her way would be “strewn with flowers”. This resulted in flowers springing up wherever she went, pavement and buildings notwithstanding, so she had to work from home, sneezing constantly from all the pollen. It ended with her 21st, thank heavens, but the final wish was that she would get “everything you’ve ever wanted,” so then she had to unload every item she’d ever even thought of having, and fend off all her schoolgirl crushes who showed up on her doorstep suddenly infatuated. But there was also an “every future wish be granted” clause, so I daresay she had to be very prudent from then on.
There would suddenly be a drastic increase of severed puppy dog tails. snails and snips, but there would also be a never ending supply of all sorts of nice things including a never ending supply of a variety of spices and sugar.
Why you ask? Because “Snips and snails and puppy dog tails: That’s what little boys are made of. Sugar and spice and everything nice: That’s what little girls are made of.”
Of course, there would be no youth population and the human race would eventually die out, but hey, we would have a lifetime of spices, sugar and escargot left for us.