You Know What They Say...

[Bumper]

You Know What They Say.....

“EVERYTHING COMES IN THREES”
Not true. In reality, everything comes in ones. Sometimes, when three “ones” occur in a row, it seems like everything comes in threes. By the way, in medieval times it was widely believed that everything came in wenty-sixes. They were wrong, too. It just took them longer to recognize the pattern.

“YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU (When you die)”
Well.....that depends on what “it” is. If it’s your dark blue suit, you can certainly take it with you. In fact, not only can you take it with you, you can probably put some things in your pockets.

“YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY”
Actually, you learn something old every day. Just because you’ve just learned it doesn’t mean it’s new. Other people almost certainly knew it. Columbus is a good example of this.

“THE SKY’S THE LIMIT”
Well, how can the sky be the limit? The sky never ends. What kind of a limit is that? You dig a hole and what do you keep getting? More earth. The earth is the limit.

“YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR”
Clearly this is not true. Have you been shopping lately? Only the most naive people believe you get what you pay for. In point of fact, if you check your purchases carefully, you’ll find that you get whatever they feel like giving you. And if corporations continue to get even more powerful, you may soon not even get that.

“TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY”
Not necessarily true. Today is another day. We have no idea what tomorrow is going to be. It may well turn out to be another day, but we can’t be sure. If it happens, I’ll be the first to say so. But, you know what? By that time, it will be today again.

“NICE GUYS FINISH LAST”
Not true. Studies have shown that, on average, nice guys finish third in a field of six. Actually, short guys finish last. By the way, in medieval times it as widely believed that nice guys finished twenty-sixth. You can see how limited those people were.

“IF YOU’VE SEEN ONE, YOU’VE SEEN THEM ALL”
Do we even have to talk about this one? This should be obvious. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen.....one. If you’ve seen them all, “then” you’ve seen them all. I can’t understand how this particular platitude even got started.

“THOSE WERE THE DAYS”
No. Those were the nights! Think back. Weren’t the nights better? Days you had to work. Nights you went to parties, danced, drank, and got laid. “Those were the nights!”

“THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH”
What about when you eat at home? I don’t pay when I eat lunch at home - it’s FREE! Sometimes I’ll leave a tip, but basically, it’s a free lunch. Yes, I realize we had to buy the food at the store, but as the Zen Buddhists say, “The food is not the lunch.”

“YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY, AND YOU TAKES YOUR CHANCES”
I think what I said earlier still applies. You pays your money and you takes whatever they jolly well give you. Actually, when you get right down to it, you pays your money and you loses your money.

“EVERYBODY HAS HIS PRICE”
Not so. Would you believe that there are millions of people who do not have their price? Thanks to a government screw up, many people have their neighbour’s price.

“THEY DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THEY USED TO”
Actually, they do make ‘em like they used to, they just don’t sell ‘em like they used to. They make ‘em, and then they keep ‘em.

“TWO WRONGS DON’T MAKE A RIGHT”
Well, it just so happens that two wrongs do make a right. Not only that, but as the number of wrongs increases, the whole thing goes up exponentially. So that while it’s true that two wrongs do make a right, and four wrongs make two rights, it actually takes sixteen wrongs to make three rights, and two hundred and fifty six wrongs to make four rights. It seems to me that anyone who strings together two hundred and fifty six wrongs needs counselling, not mathematics.

“IF IT’S NOT ONE THING, IT’S ANOTHER”
No, not always. Sometimes if it’s not one thing, not only is it not another, but it turns out to be something else entirely.

“YOU CAN’T WIN THEM ALL”
Not true. Believe it or not, there is a man somewhere in New Brunswick who, so far, has won them all. But don’t get too excited; it has also been shown that it is also possible to lose them all. By the way, there is no record of anyone ever having tied them all.

“YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS”
That depends on how intimately you know the other person. Perhaps you can’t have it both ways at once, but if you’ve got a little time, you can probably have it a minimum of six or seven ways.

“THINGS HAVE TO GET BETTER, THEY CAN”T GET ANY WORSE”
This is an example of truly faulty logic. Just because things can’t get any worse, is no reason to believe they have to get any better. They might just stay the same. And, by the way, who says things can’t get any worse? For many people, things get worse and worse and worse and worse.

“NOBODY EVER SAID THAT LIFE WAS FAIR”
I specifically remember as I was growing up, at least twelve different people telling me life was fair. One person put it this way, “Life, you will find, is fair.” Oddly enough, all twelve of those people died before the age of twenty-seven.

“IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO”
Sounds good, but simple reasoning will reveal that actually it takes only one to tango. Granted, it does take two to tango together, but one person is certainly capable of tangoing on his own. He would likely look pretty silly, though.

“THERE’S A SUCKER BORN EVERY MINUTE, AND TWO TO TAKE HIM”
This may have been true in the past, but now, if you adjust for the increase in the population base, birth control, and the so-called moral decline, not only are there five suckers born every minute, there are now fifty-three to take him,

“WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN’T HURT YOU”
Why don’t we just ask Julius Caesar and John F. Kennedy for their opinion on this one?

“LIFE IS SHORT”
Sorry, life is not short, it’s just that everything else lasts so long - mountains, rivers, stars, planets - life seems short in comparison. Actually, life lasts just the right amount of time. Until you die. Being dead, on the other hand...is very, very long.