“The dog days of summer” are truly a geographic cliché since, in Florida, we have these in the winter months too. I like the days when you lay around doing nothing but sleeping, waking only for eating and bathing (optional) and then back to the rug (bed). However, I can only recall doing this about 4 times in my life. My life is often filled with never ending clichés. I had a favorite, “Life sucks and then you die”. I was informed long ago that this saying is not positive, acceptable or ladylike so I ditched it for the much more politically correct “Life’s a beach” but think the other one, in my head, anyway
My childhood favorite is “If you have time to do it twice, you have time to do it right the first time” as I trounced off to the barn to re-slop a pig or pick hay out of a crack. If you had to hear this repeatedly as a child, then I’m sorry for you. If you had to hear this repeatedly as a child and you were my child, then take heed, its a good one.Feeling down and warn out? Well then you just “Buckle your grit and pull yourself up by your boot straps”. It never occurred to me to ask what grit was or say I had tennis shoes with ties not straps.
There is a website dedicated to cliches and some I have heard repeatedly and others never before. If you want to freshen up your cliché bank when you need to cheer someone up here is the link: http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/sybev/cliche/stupid.htm. I strongly suggest skipping the clichés and speaking from your heart. A cliche will probably pop out anyway, but try to think of something new and intelligent. Telling someone “they are not the only one in a boat” only makes a person realize 7 other people are miserable too!