Deborah Lipp

People have pet phrases. I have a co-worker who says “At the end of the day” all the damn time. At least once per conversation. So it goes.

I’m friends with a married couple. She says “Bottom line” all the damn time. “I had this discussion with my son. I told him, Bottom line? It’s your responsibility.” She never says “To make a long story short,” or “The thing of it is,” or anything like that. It’s always “Bottom line.”

Her husband says “Fair enough.” If he questions why you did something and you tell him, “Fair enough.” If you discuss plans of any kind, “Fair enough.”

And I think about these two people, how strong and forthright she is, how thoughtful and concerned he is, and I think these phrases aren’t tics, but expressions of their personality.

I wonder: Does everyone’s pet phrase express something unique about them?

From my mother’s local “Town News” dated August 1, 2007:

Robotic gynecologic surgery discussed.

Tell the truth, your legs just squeezed shut, didn’t they?

“Don’t wave your fish at me.”

That is all.

We are having a company breakfast, there is food and people serving themselves and a touch of chaos, and I overhear

In the abyss of my memory, there is an orange juice floating around.

Two words I never thought I’d write in the same sentence:

Transvestite Munchkin.

As in, there was a transvestite Munchkin in the ensemble. Twirling a skirted woman while his skirt twirled. Very twirly.

I heard this phrase on a radio ad. For, I dunno, a restaurant or club or something; “You’ll be satisfied beyond your wildest expectations.”

Sort of I feel for the copy writer. “Beyond your wildest dreams” is a cliché and it’s A Good Thing to avoid cliché. But on the other hand, no.

Dreams can be wild because they are unconnected to reality. A wild dream can involve flying over a city. A wilder dream can be flying while wearing a sparkling cape that changes color. Your wildest dream can be flying while wearing a soft, silky, massaging cape that changes color while having mid-air sex with Brad Pitt. So if someone says that they satisfy “beyond your wildest dreams” they are exceeding the limits of your implausible imagination. Possibly a naked Brad Pitt lookalike will burst out of your desert singing about flying. That would definitely exceed one’s wildest dreams.

Expectations, on the other hand, cannot be wild because they are rooted in reality. When I get into my car I expect that turning the ignition will result in the car starting. I do not expect that it will result in a passle of cute kittehs leaping out of the CD slot. I might dream that, and it would certainly be a wild dream, but I do not expect it.

So what can “beyond your wildest expectations” possibly mean? That when I turn the ignition, my car won’t just start, it’ll really, really start?

See what I mean?

Sometimes clichés serve a purpose.

Someone told me she was putting a website up on the Internet.

Where else would you put it?

I long for computers to blow up.

No, not really. But on Star Trek, when a computer dies, it dies in a shower of sparks and a satisfying array of booms and bams and puffs of smoke. Whereas in real life, when a computer dies, it just silently and unsatisfyingly goes fffft and ruins your life.

So I mentioned this to a co-worker and she says

“Oh, you should have smelled my senior project.”

There’s a phrase you rarely hear.