Thursday, May 29, 2008
On the Roof
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?'
-Winnie the Pooh
"My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth," is what Mater longed to say, tried to say, of her thirst. She urgently needed a cup of tea and was doing her most polite best to urge me to disconnect the telephone.
Instead, though, she said something else and as a result I found myself forced to record it, both for posterity and for the strange visual image it provoked:
"my tongue," she said, "is stuck to my roof."
Her tongue, she said, was stuck to her roof.
Worrying images of scurrying firemen were abundant in my mind; I pictured them scrambling up the old stone walls of Mater's house to rescue the stranded, parched tongue.
And all for the want of a cup of tea.
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7 comments:
Hehe..so cute.
The imagery it conjured up in me was this Far Side comic I saw once.
It was a picture of an airplane in the sky, with a frog hanging underneath it by its tongue. His tongue was stuck to the bottom of the plane.Does this make sense?
The frog thought the airplane was a fly.
Sigh...some things are better when you see them, not when they are explained to you. :)
Jaime, Yes! It makes sense, in a strange way.
"some things are better when you see them, not when they are explained to you" - true, except when the teller tells it well ;)
Call to 911: My mother's tongue is on the roof. It says it's gonna jump.
Delightful post!
San- maybe Mater's tongue wanted to jump because I mocked it once too often? ;)
Thanks for your words.
I heard those pictorial phrases all my life. My great grandfather on my mother's side was from Ireland and many of the folks near her childhood home were of Irish ancestery. The Irish had a colorful and pictorial way of expressing themselves. I love little stories that remind me of those days.
There's nothing better than a Winnie the Pooh quote AND a Mater story put together!
Texican, so you have Irish roots then ;) very good. I should have known- perhaps that's where your story telling ability comes from.
Tangobaby, You are so right. They should get together more often! :) Mater is a woman of Very Big Heart, just as Pooh is a Bear of Very Little Brain.
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