The Wife beat me to the bathroom this morning. She was all showered and made presentable like by the time I made my way up there. I consider myself to be in a state of perpetual-presentableness, but I do need to brush my teeth. Also, a quick shower isn’t bad for getting rid of the sleep cobwebs that coffee does not. The Wife would disagree on the presentable thing.
As I prepped my toothbrush, the Wife turned to me, looked me in the eye and said “Today, the whip is getting whipped.”
I stared back at her. Something didn’t seem quite right about that. Whips getting whipped? After a moments reflection I replied “You mean ‘the whip is getting cracked’.”
She was looking in the mirror doing that primping thing ladies do with their hair, trying to make it look made up without it being too made up. A fine art if ever there was one. I usually drag a comb through my hair a few times and I’m done. Still primping she responds “Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” I said with a mouthful of toothbrush. “You know, like the saying ‘Time to crack the whip’?”
She put her hands on her hips and shifted her weight to one side, looked at me and said “I know the saying but that sounds funny though, don’t you think?”
Truthfully no, it did not. Not to me anyway. Was I prepared to go to the mat over an ambiguous use of a colloquialism?
Yep.
Toothbrush still in my mouth I told her “Well, whips don’t get ‘whipped.’ That’s what the whip does to something else. The whip itself ‘cracks’ which implies something got ‘whipped.'”
Pause. For no shower and being in the middle of brushing my teeth, I thought that was pretty good. A rather devastating opening-salvo-use-of-logic i thought, if ever there was one.
The Wife looked at me. It was obvious she was considering the same question I had moments earlier: am I really going to argue about this?
Decision made, she turned to leave. Waving her hand dismissively at me, she said “Whipped, cracked, whatever. Stuff is getting done today.” She left me there with my toothbrush.
Dang. Denied certain victory on a technicality.