Idiom Madness

         Or Don’t Give Me The Cold Shoulder – It Would Break My Heart

 

Jack was dead tired and clearly feeling under the weather. It had been raining cats and dogs for a month of Sundays, his boss, fat cat that he was, had given him the ax, his wife was about to kick him to the curb, and he was beside himself, fit to be tied, ready for the loony bin. It wasn’t his fault. Sure, he was over the hill, fat as a pig, and was known to fly off the handle more often than not, but until recently, he had felt fit as a fiddle and in his mind’s eye was killing it. But the tides had turned. 

 

When his boss had spilled the beans – that his work was not up to snuff – he had considered doing himself in, but he wouldn’t do that for deep inside he thought he was the cat’s meow. That was his mother’s fault. In her eyes he was the best thing since sliced bread. When he was knee high to a grasshopper she had treated him like the golden boy, telling him he was perfect – one snow job after the other. He learned the hard way that flattery like hers would get him nowhere though. Even when he courted his wife way back when (somewhere in the dark ages) and he had whispered sweet nothings into her ear, she had told him in no uncertain terms that he lied like a rug, and she would have none of his bull. She almost blew her top a few times, so clearly he wasn’t earning brownie points by lying through his teeth, even though he really wasn’t. He would never pull her leg about his affection for her. I’m as honest as the day is long. He knew he would love her through thick and thin, come rain or shine, through hell or high water because the fact of the matter was, she took his breath away. 

“I don’t want any more of your monkey business,” she had told him. But he hadn’t been trying to pull the wool over her eyes. He loved her to the moon and back. Theirs was a match made in heaven. And when she finally believed him and was no longer on the fence about marrying him, he was as happy as a dog with two tails. Their togetherness was a right as rain. He was not about to take her with a grain of salt. . . ever. He was smart as a whip and knew if he did she would go through the roof. 

 

So why, out of thin air had his life suddenly become ass backwards. Why was he taking it in the shorts from everyone? He wasn’t nutty as a fruitcake, he had never been a smart aleck, and was one smart apple. And he was not about to go down in flames. He knew what to do. He would carve out some time and chew the fat with his wife because at the heart of it all, they did see eye to eye. Besides, great minds! They would burn the midnight oil, talk until the cows came home, and she would, without a doubt, tell him the ball was in his court. “Stiff upper lip, Jack,” she would say. “You’ve got this. Jobs for a man like you are a dime a dozen, and you are worth your weight in gold. Break a leg, honey.”

Was she right? 

When finally, he hit the sack, he realized he had made it through this crisis by the skin of his teeth. His moods hit rock bottom only once in a blue moon and thank goodness he had been able to nip this one in the bud. But it was time to jump back on the band wagon and get a new show on the road. He was ready for a clean bill of health, and he had done his homework. I have the world by the tail. Afterall he already knew what he needed backward and forwards. And he slept like a log. In fact, he fell asleep thinking. Nothing is over ‘til the fat lady sings.

When he woke up the next day at the break of dawn, he felt as if he had died and gone to heaven. He was a new man believing to the depth of his soul that when one door closes, another one opens. Time to break new ground, Jack. You’re free as a bird.

 

 

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