What are some of your funny, family allusions?? How did they come about?

Parent Cafe
61

We live in a house with radiators covered with wooden covers, which are dubbed heatiators officially.

My kids played string instruments as children, and their favorite insult was to call someone an “f hole” which is the actual name for that squiggly opening on the top of a violin/viola/cello/bass where the sound comes out.

And because their elementary school was on the other side of what passes for a mountain in our state, driving back and forth several times a day gave me “carpool tunnel syndrome.”

62

According to my father, “If you have to eat poop, make sure it’s your own”. He means this literally, and will periodically remind us all of this. He never has come up with a situation where we might have to eat our own poop, unsurprisingly. There are occasions where this phrase comes in handy, always followed by hysterical laughter.

63

We tend to speak in movie quotes in our house. When I’m being especially annoying or demanding I’ll singsong to my Dh “I’m adorable”. To which he replies in his best Manny Patinkin “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Then several years ago there was a PS4 commercial w/ Twins catcher Mauer. Short version… character in commercial says to Mauer “I’m not even allowed in Mexico.” Well, Dh as a military member literally isn’t allowed in several Mexican states. Whenever Mexico comes up Dh quips “I’m not even allowed in Mexico.”

Last is just the warped mind of our 11 yr old. He’s a total chatterbox & unintentionally hilarious. He was telling a funny story while his brother was taking a drink. It amused S19 and he inhaled his drink, causing him to cough horribly. Dh asked if he was ok, but little brother answered instead … “Yeah he’s ok, he’s just choking on humor.”
Now when anyone coughs they are choking on humor.

64

Your cough story reminds me - we use the phrase “biscuit cough” from the original Winnie the Pooh books. Roo coughs, and Kanga says he has to stay home. He complains that it is a “biscuit cough, not one you tell about” (meaning a bit of biscuit in the windpipe, and that he is not getting sick). So when someone coughs, they are asked if it is a biscuit cough, or are they getting sick?

65

My kids have had chronic health conditions for most of their lives now, which limits their stamina to varying degrees. D’s sweet friends ask her if she’s REALLY sick or just HIdaughter sick (meaning stamina low due to her chronic condition). If the latter, they ask if she’d rather come over or have them come over to hang around together. Most of the time, it’s a flare of the depleted stamina.

She has very thoughtful friends who try to include her as much as her health allows.

H always claims he is heading back to the (like a good horse, though he’s rarely ever ridden), when he’s on autopilot driving back home instead of stopping for errands.

66

During the last year of my dad’s life my sister and I sometimes had to quickly pack up my kids and make the long drive to my mom’s to help her out while Dad was in the hospital. It was tiring for my 3-year-old so we’d stop at a drive thru to get a Happy Meal so he could have a toy to occupy him. On one trip we bought him chicken nuggets because he was “starving hungry.” He picked one up and the chicken shot out of the breading and flew across the car. He looked at the casing for a second, put it back in the box, and picked up another one. The same thing happened. He threw the breading back in the box in disgust and exclaimed, “Why did you buy me fake trick food from the fat vat?!” We pulled off the highway and bought some healthy snacks.

After that I made sure to have a box of small toys (some new and some he just hadn’t played with in awhile) and enough healthy snacks ready to get us through an unexpected trip. But now whenever we go out to eat and someone is served a dish that doesn’t live up to expectations they sigh and say, “I got the fake trick food.”

67

Funny. My grandmother would get confused/need help telling stories and would just start sputtering random names of her brothers and sisters to help her out. So now our family will just randomly call out “Loretta, Nelson, Hip!” when we get off track in conversations. (Nelson and Hip are the same person- he was known as Uncle Hip.) My Dad made a joke one time that Morgan Fairchild was his favorite dramatic actress, so we use that a lot for various C-list and below celebs. He also had a running schtick about Thomas Kincaid whose marketing line was “the painter of light” - if you know who that is - his paintings are all over the place. We pay him fake reverence and always call him the painter of light. My mom once told my very beautiful sister that “stupid isn’t pretty” and my sister and I have had a hay day with that for the last 20 years. My husband’s grandmother lived to be 98. She loved bread. Every time she ate at our house, I would put a big basket of bread right in front of her plate. EVERY time, she’d sit her little body in chair and pipe up disappointedly “What? No bread?!” - so we say that a lot at big family dinners.

68

I’m shamelessly adopting this one.

Not really a family catchphrase but something the boys still roll their eyes about as they eat vegetables. When my oldest was 2 or 3, he saw a commercial for one of the Lord of the Rings movies. The commercial focused on Gollum in his creepy glory, showing Gollum slink up into the frame as something from every kid’s nightmares. My son was horrified and breathlessly asked me, "Mom, what IS that?!?’

I put on my best straight face and replied with a little compassion and sadness, “That is a little boy who did not eat his vegetables” and then went on with what I was doing. (You can’t lay it on too thick with the smart ones.) No more discussion on the matter at that time but he did eat a lot more veggies for months after that.

69

Sorry, the phone cut off the word—“Heading to the barn” means on autopilot forgetting errands on the way home.

70

We speak in a lot of movie quotes too (several from Vacation). My wife and I, anytime someone says they need money and another person asks how much, the answer is always “About $52,000” from Cousin Eddie in Vacation. And if we go to eat somewhere and there is no meat, the question of no meat in this is typically met with “You get enough meat at home, Claude” And that is a mix of two quotes from Vacation.

And if things are not going well (in pretty much anything), and someone asks “how is it going?” I always respond with “Looks like University of Illinois” from Risky Business.

71

This is my new favorite thread. Thanks everyone for the good laughs!

72

Once during a very long car trip through the Rockies, Dh suggested to the kids that they count how many cows they saw as a way to keep them occupied. Well… that didn’t last long, but the ever since then the nicknames the girls invented on the trip have stuck—Colorado is now “Cow-a-rado” and Utah is “Moo-tah.”

73

I love these stories!

We have a number of allusions in our family, too. Several are from the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice.

“Other way, Mr. Collins!” (Mr. Collins goes the wrong way at the dance, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKNj7wVhyP8). Our kitchen is small, and it’s not unusual, especially around mealtimes, for the 3 of us to nearly collide when we’re getting things from the kitchen and dining room. It’s usually my daughter who calls out, “Other way, Mr. Collins!”

“Oh, now I understand.” (in exaggerated British accent and fluted voice). The socially awkward Mr. Collins has compared the apartment of Elizabeth Bennet’s aunt, Mrs. Philips, to the “small summer breakfast room at Rosings.”. Mrs. Philips is insulted until she is made to understand that Rosings is grand and that a compliment was intended. She says, “Oh, now I understand”.

“The Look”. Mr. Darcy gives Elizabeth “the look” (see the 2nd photo on this page: https://janeausteninvermont.blog/2013/11/25/mr-darcys-feelings-or-what-jane-austen-really-tells-us-about-her-hero/)
But other characters give each other “the look” too. Samwise gives Frodo “the look”. We now call out “the look” in films or TV whenever we see it.

“Lots in common”. This allusion is to the cartoon video of Charlotte’s Web. Whenever my daughter and I find we have yet another thing in common (e.g. I just this week bought both of us identical running shoes from T.J. Maxx, and we both wear the same size), one of us will burst into song: “Cause we’ve got LOTS in common where it really counts, where it REALLY counts we have large amounts” etc.

“Callapitter”. As a young child, my daughter used to say “callapitter” instead of caterpillar. Then one day she just stopped saying it the wrong way. Now “callapitter” refers to anything she outgrew.

“Conrad”. This one comes from Madame Secretary. One evening as we were watching the show, Elizabeth addressed the president as “Conrad” instead of “Mr. President”. My H, forgetting that in the show Conrad and Elizabeth are longtime friends from their days at the CIA, asked, “Why did she call him Conrad?”

I knew what he meant, but thought I’d have some fun with him, and said, “Well that’s just a good name to call people.” Turning to my daughter, I asked her, “How’s it going, Conrad?” She, catching on, replied to me, “Just fine, Conrad, how’s it with you?” From there we created the Conrad Continuum-- like the Q Continuum for Star Trek fans. D and I still address each other as Conrad sometimes. At college, when at some fun activity they made small embossed license plates with their names on them, she made one that said “Conrad”, which is now a magnet on our fridge.

“Conrad” expanded to mean anything generic. One day when I was driving her back to college she pointed to a road that passed over the highway as we entered NY, where we have to take particular care as people entering I-15 from that on-ramp sometimes fail to stop and yield to highway traffic, despite the stop sign. She asked, “Is that a particular road?” (meaning, is that a numbered route?" ) It’s route 120A, but I ran with it and said, “No, that’s Conrad road.” She laughed and said "Conroad!"

It’s corny but we get laughs from it.

Finally-- “It’s too late for you-- you’re already in the hole!”, from the earthquake scene in This Is The End.

So many more… but I have to stop here.

74

Oh, bear with me, I can’t resist sharing one more.

William Carlos Williams’ poem, This is Just to Say, has given rise to several corny parodies at our house, and will no doubt generate more as time goes on.

Here is Mr. Williams’ original poem:

*This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold*

I wrote this parody for my daughter as she was moving into college, to remind her to lock her dorm room and the car door as she went back and forth to her dorm while moving in:

This is Just to Say
(precaution to college students on moving in day, with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

I have taken
the things you left
in your unlocked cars

which probably
you were taking
to your dorm

Forgive me
They were just what I needed
and so well packed

75

My father started two family allusions at my wedding 30+ years ago. Someone told him we were a nice looking family. He puffed his chest out, holding his lapels and replied “I knooooow”. Later, someone told him he looked good in a suit, and he replied, “No, I make this suit look good.”

My sister and grandmother would do the Good night, John Boy, when we visited over the circle, using The Waltons’ show names instead of our real names.

I started “Happy Sleepy” as a way of saying goodnight to my children as babies and toddlers. My son’s girlfriend just looked at us.

76

One that happened is “Is that true or did you make it up?” It was something I heard all weekend when I met my family member’s BF and I mentioned anything he hadn’t heard before. He’d then ask me my sources.

It was a very long and weird weekend. Now, sometimes in our nuclear family, we say, “I remember xxxx.” If cross examined, we say, “I must’ve just nade it up.”

77

When my daughter was about 5, she would ask me why we rode in the lane on the Interstate with diamonds on it. I explained to her what a HOV lane was, but somehow she got it in her 5 year old mind that it was the HIV lane. I tried numerous times to correct her without success. She would be with friends going somewhere and she would ask their parents to drive in the HIV lane. What a difference one vowel can make.

78

Oh yeah, mom always said, “No rings, no strings,” which I explained to my then BFs meant I couldn’t see them exclusively unless & until I was formally engaged. I did date different men simultaneously before H and I were engaged.

Mom also said, “ Why buy the cow when you give the milk for free,” which she also told us girls — will leave interpretations to your imagination. All of us girls are happily married to our original spouses.

79

When my DS attended a Christian preschool years ago, they made a nativity with shredded wheat and a peanut representing the baby Jesus. On the way home from school that day, my son had a tantrum because I wouldn’t let him eat the baby Jesus. I had to stop at Target and he was screaming and crying, “I WANT TO EAT THE BABY JESUS!” Finally, I relented and let him eat the “baby Jesus”.

Over the years “eating the baby Jesus” has been used as a metaphor to talk about how hungry you are… e.g “ Well not hungry enough to eat the baby Jesus, but pretty hungry” ; a meter for judging how bad other Mom’s are e.g “Well she wouldn’t let her kid eat the baby Jesus” and a way to defend my embarrassing parenting behavior e.g “Well at least I didn’t say I wanted to eat the baby Jesus.”

I’m pretty sure if Heaven is real, we’re not getting in.

80

All the comments from @CTmom2018 about Conrad are so great. I have to watch Madame Secretary!

My dad’s name is Conrad, and he is an inveterate eater off of other people’s plates. It’s never safe to “save the best for last” when he’s around. One of the very first times he met my (now) husband, we were seated at the same table at a formal catered event. Near the end of the meal, Dad asked my new beau, “Are you going to eat that?” and simultaneously SNATCHED the last morsel from his plate and popped it into mouth! This was shocking to everyone… except his children (and now his grandchildren). We call this behavior “pulling a Conrad.”

Dad’s a too-thin octogenarian now, but he’ll never live down this reputation. Other favorite Conrad-isms:

“Put on a hat”
Said any time someone is cold, indoors or out, summer or winter, even if they’re already wearing a hat

“Go sit”
Said any time someone is having belly pain. What’s implied is that the sitting happens on the toilet.

“Was the cat sick when you left?”
Full story upthread #30. Said any time there’s a long explanation that’s deliberately being skipped.