Hi. I’ve use these idioms in every day conversation for years only to slowly realize that I’ve made them up and sometimes people don’t know what I’m talking about.
So, to give you insight into my brain, I’ve defined them for you right here. Enjoy and use at your leisure!
A Tennis Match – a game that isn’t fun not because it sucks but because you can’t seem to get a grasp on how to play it. It’s like the first time you play tennis and lose because you can’t ever get the ball over the damn net. Used in a sentence: “God dammit, the first time playing this incredibly intricate and detail oriented game of Imperial Assault is a tennis match!”
A Record Needle – an intrusive thought or task that you feel like you have to resolve immediately otherwise you will think about it over and over and over and over again all day. It’s like when a record needle gets stuck in a groove and you hear the same bit of song on repeat until the needle is picked up and moved. Used in a sentence: “I need to buy those plane tickets, I need to buy those plane tickets, I need to buy those plane tickets… uh-oh, I’m not even listening to my blind date talking about penguins… stupid record needle.”
Morning You – The person that you are in the morning if you are not a morning person. It doesn’t count as the real you. It is a separate entity. Morning You shouldn’t be taken to heart or asked to make any important decisions or expected to be charming and funny. If people want the real you, they have to wait until after the morning. Used in a sentence: “I’m sorry I called you a cocksucker this morning. To be fair, you were dealing with Morning Alison and not me.”
A First Name Last Name Person – A person who is only known when you’ve said both their first and last name in one breath. If a friend were to use just this person’s first name while telling you a story about this person, you would have to stop your friend and say, “I’m sorry, you were with who?” and then the moment your friend includes the person’s first AND last name, you’d go, “Oh, right, right, right, right. I know them well. Yes. Continue.” Used in a sentence: “George Stephanopoulos is a First Name Last Name person.”
The Lint Trap Effect – The amazing sensation of relief you get whenever something smoothly goes from dirty to clean, like when you peel off the lint from a washing machine dryer’s lint trip. It can be used for any smooth transitions, (crooked to straight, hot to cold) but works best when it deals with grossness to cleanliness scenarios. Examples of times you can get The Lint Trap Effect: picking out a really good booger that makes you suddenly able to breathe again, putting Elmer’s glue on your hand and peeling it off when it dries, using ear wax candles, shaving, popping a zit, using those air cans to get dust out of the crevices of your keyboard, neti pots, getting dirt out from under your nails, windexing, vacumming the blades of a fan and using Q-tips (duh). Used in a sentence: “In college I thought I had an ear infection, because I couldn’t hear out of my ear and it hurt real bad, so I went to the doctor and they used water pressure to pop out a huge chunk of wax that got stuck in there due to allergies and in a moment I could hear, the pressure was immediately gone, and it was the most amazing lint trap effect I have ever had in my entire life.” (True story.)
A Tire Valve – What you wish you had on your belly whenever you feel bloated and/or have eaten too much, just so you can squeeze it to get a little air out of your tum tum. A more serious variation of this one is called “A Golf Club,” which is in reference to that scene in Last King Of Scotland where Forest Whitaker’s character has bad indegestion and so James McAvoy gets a golf club and pulls it up against Whitaker’s belly so Whitaker can release the world’s largest fart. Used in a sentence: “Man, Thanksgiving dinner was so good, but I wish I had a tire valve right now, or maybe a golf club.”
They Got A Face – When you can’t put your finger on why you don’t like someone, you just know you don’t like them and you know you’re right about it. This phrase was actually coined by my late Aunt Hilda, who was exceptionally good at reading people. Used in a sentence: “I don’t know why I don’t like celebrity chef Bobby Flay, he’s just got a face.”
You Scharfed It! – When you’re playing mini golf and hit the ball at the start of the course only to have the ball come rolling back to you at the start. This needs to happen multiple times for you to truly Scharf it. You prep, you hit the ball, and, yet again, the ball just comes right back to start. After a while, it almost seems impossible to have the ball come back to the start this many times. Like, what did you do in a past life to have this weird thing happen to you while you are trying to play mini golf with friends? It’s named after my dear friend Lauren Scharf. Do I need to use it in a sentence? You get it.
– One L
“Everything’s coming up Scharf!” – Molly McRoberts, to be explained in another idioms post. Lauren’s a great friend for creating idioms.
In the Sun with Alison 