I think every longtime couple/family/group of friends has particular expressions they use amongst themselves that outsiders may not understand. Mister and I have several. One favorite of mine is "He/she needs a consultation with the Pope," meaning the person in question has terrible hair.
How in the world did we get that? I'm glad you asked. It comes from a story the late Jerry Clower told years ago on Riders Radio Theater, about a barber with a bad attitude. A customer came into his shop for a haircut and was all excited because he was going to Rome and hoped he'd see the Pope at the Vatican.
The barber, being a negative soul, told the customer that "Rome is awful, it smells bad, the airlines will lose your luggage, and no way will you get to see the Pope." The customer shrugged it off and went on his way. A few weeks later he returned, again all excited because he'd taken his trip.
He said to the barber, " You lied to me. Rome is beautiful, it doesn't smell bad, and the airline was great. And I did too get to see the Pope at the Vatican, waving to the crowd from up there on his little shelf. While I was walking away, a man touched me on the shoulder and said, 'Young man, the Pope would like to meet with you personally.'
"Well, I couldn't believe it. I followed him up some stairs, down some stairs, through a lot of hallways, and we finally got to the room where the Pope was. The Pope said to me, 'Young man, I felt it necessary to pray with you, and counsel with you, because out of all those people out there in the courtyard, you have the sorriest haircut I've ever seen.'"
That was many years ago, and I've never forgotten it. It's funny how some things like that stick with you seemingly forever, and others just fade off into the ether. Needing a consultation with the Pope became part of our family lore. Apparently there are a lot of folks out there with unfortunate hair, because I find myself using the expression often, especially where Bill Gates and Donald Trump are involved. (Sweet Fancy Moses, with all the money those men have, you'd think they could afford a decent coif.)
Till next time - what are some of your tribe's expressions?
We still walk around saying, "It looked like her gall-bladder had busted!" which also comes from Jerry Clower. He was telling a story about a woman with ENTIRELY too much green eye shadow on. The funny thing is, we heard this story in the middle of the night on a youth camping trip from rank strangers the next camp over. They were blasting Jerry Clower from their boombox (remember those?) sometime way after midnight and we all got to laughing so hard, we didn't care that they'd kept us awake.
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