Idiots And Idioms
The sun had fallen below the valley walls and it was getting chilly. Mind you, I was still above 14,000 feet. I was crossing a pool of water - nothing unusual - when the front tire hit a rock and slipped in the mud. The bike landed on me - also not particularly unusual - but this time I was pinned down, unable to free my left leg. After two minutes that felt like 10, I laid back and submerged myself in the cold water in order to gain better leverage. With all my might I pushed, and my leg came loose. Trying to right the bike, it slipped away in the mud. But eventually it complied and I was on my way.
Shivering, I rushed toward the town of Basid where I found a guesthouse. I stripped out of my wet gear, then remembered that most of my documents were stashed behind my back protector, because reasons. Drenched and bleeding, I set them out to dry. Outside, I caught the owner putting my boots on the barbeque just in time to save them.
A while later, an eclectic group of foreigners showed up in two landcruisers: French, Dutch, Polish, Australian, Kiwi, Portuguese, and Canadian. Many months earlier I began asking people for idioms in their mother tongues, and this was a golden opportunity to gather more. They recited theirs, and I shared some of the others that I had picked up. I recounted the Dutch expression that "France is heaven, but unfortunately French people live there," at which point everybody chimed in that they also had this saying in their own language. The Frenchman nodded and admitted “it’s true.”
Here are just a few of my favorites. I'll leave you to guess at the meanings.
Australian: not here to fuck spiders.
English: missed by a bee’s dick.
German: to have a bumblebee in your ass.
French: to have an ass full of noodles.
French: I didn't wear my cabbage pants just so that rabbits would eat my ass.
Italian: at the end of the day, the cucumber always goes in the grocer’s ass.
Italian: some people wait for the rain so they don’t have to cry alone.
Brazilian: do some drugs, have some salad.
Swedish: to slide in on a shrimp sandwich.
If you have any other extraordinary sayings in your languages, please do share.
