Family quips

         My family, especially myself, loves to talk. Anything really that gets our lips a flapping and our tongues wagging will do. We have never been the silent, brooding types. We debate, we argue ( lovingly of course ), we eat slow because our talk/chew ratio is so unbalanced favoring talk. After the meal we will sit at the table continuing the conversation for another hour, sometimes two. We usually stuff ourselves and then talk our appetites back until we are ready for dessert. Some of the spouses have acclimated to become big talkers too. Some haven't or didn't but that's okay. Pro talking isn't for everyone. Some people are people of few words, instead choosing their words diligently and slowly. Go in town to the grocery story with my mother or anywhere for that matter and you will understand what I mean. Stopping to the store for "a couple things" turns into a hour and a half mini reunion of family/friends/old neighbors/new acquaintances/former school mates/the cashier/the bag boy/friends/the lady she just met last week at that very store and so on and so on. My father was the same way. We could be halfway across the country and stop to eat at a place we had never heard of in a town we had never heard of and before we left my Dad would have befriended the waitress and half if not all of the patrons inside the place. He was the Patriarch of the family and he was a top talker. My mother is the queen of quips and she could definitely hang in there right with him. I guess that explains why us five young'uns love to talk too. And speaking of quips, we like to throw them in the talk mix every now and then. We aren't braggarts or boasters but we seem to have to add to the description of whatever we are talking about right at that moment. For example, most novice talkers would describe a abnormal temperature occurring around them by simply saying I'm hot. Or I'm cold. Not us. That's to boring. We have to embellish a simple statement like that and spice it up a little.  Hence, a basic statement of "I'm hot", becomes "I'm hot as fire AND sweating buckets". For us, throwing two quips in the same sentence like that means we are EXTREMELY warm. Being hot, but to a lesser degree, would warrant a sentence using only one quip so we would just say "I'm burning up" or, "I'm suffocating". Make sense?  And there are plenty more believe me. If we are hot like that then we are probably thirsty so we become as dry as a popcorn fart. Or dry as a poke ( whatever a poke is ). We might be dying of thirst. Speaking of dying, that one was always used to describe things as the most extreme. Sleepy? We were dead tired. If we really, really meant something we were dead serious. We see or have a ugly article of clothing and we wouldn't be seen dead in it. Someone we know passes away and they are dead as a doornail. Is there really such a nail as a doornail? I don't know but people can be as dead as one. And what would someone be if they weren't as dead as one? Slightly dead? Just a little dead? I don't know that either but it sure sounds final. Animals play a big part in helping my family describe things. I guess growing up on the farm helped shape some of these adjectives. If someone didn't have or wouldn't get a job then they were lazy as a dog. Another shot at the canine world was we were sick as a dog. Felines kind of got a shot. After a hard days work we would be mangy as a polecat (another thing I'm not sure exists). We always had pigs on the farm. From a few to a few thousand over the years. Feeding them was a never ending daily task. Anybody overweight was fat as a hog. We would go to English's restaurant and pig out on all you can eat fried chicken. We would eat like a hog. Something of no value was worthless as tits on a boar hog. Someone with no money was poor as a snake. If you weren't a big eater then you didn't eat enough to keep a bird alive. If you had to do it your way and you wouldn't heed advice you were stubborn as a mule. Had extraordinary strength? Then you were strong as a ox. Anyone drinking was drunk as a skunk. But...if drugs were suspected then they were high as a kite. When us kids were young we would run around like chickens with our heads cut off. If momma told us to calm down and we didn't she would probably beat the tarnation out of us. Insects were included. After a heavy meal we would be full as a tick. Lose our cool and we would be mad as a hornet. It was possible that a person could be so ugly a fly wouldn't pitch on them. Anyone that ugly would be ugly as sin, ugly as mud, ugly as the day is long.  Someone opposite of that was cute as a button of course. The reason we didn't trust a particular group of people was because they were thick as thieves. If we woke up sore we were stiff as a board. Anything that wouldn't loosen or open was tighter then a jug. That neighbor or person that kept getting fired or quitting their job wouldn't work in a pie shop. If we came across another long talker that outtalked us then they talked our head off. These are but just a few of the funny things me and my family would use to describe things but that's all for now. I'm starving and my house looks like a pig sty. Gotta work my tail off and clean like my life depended on it.