So last night I met up with my cousin “Glen” and his soon-to-be “Jen” (not their real names), at Islands in Encino. They got there before me, and almost as soon as I sat down “Jen” pulled out her iPhone and started pecking away at it. All the following quotes in this write-up are as close to exact as I could remember, but even in the parts where I paraphrased, the gist is still the same.
“Jen”:
“Oh, here, I wanted to show you something. Hopefully it’s working because I couldn’t get in earlier”
“Glen”:
“What do you want to show him?”
“Jen”:
“His favorite thing.”
Me:
“Big fat tits?”
“Glen”:
“Wow, really? That’s your favorite thing?”
Me:
“That actually surprises you?”
“Jen”:
“Okay, your second favorite thing.”
A look of puzzlement blankets “Glen’s” face.
Me:
“Pumas!”
“Jen”:
“Yep.”
“Glen”:
“So those are your two favorite things? In that order?”
Me:
“Yeah, and my third favorite is tri-tip.”
“Glen”:
“So tits are your number one favorite thing? Interesting.”
Me :
“Actually, I said big fat tits are my favorite thing…But you know what, I take that back, if a girl is offering, I’ll take ‘em any size I can get ‘em. Who am I to look a gift tit in the nipple?”
“Glen” & “Jen” in unison:
“Huh, what?”
Me:
“I won’t look a gift tit in the nipple”.
“Glen”:
“I don’t get it.”
“Jen”:
“Yeah, me neither.”
Me (exasperated):
“You’ve never heard the phrase ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’?!”
“Glen” & “Jen”:
“No. Never.”
I was flabbergasted, astonished, bewildered even.
And right at the moment, as if on cue, our waitress Gemmika (her real name. Though I might not be spelling it right, it’s phonetically correct. Go see her and tip big, she was a sweetheart) came over.
Me:
“Hi, excuse me, I’m sorry, but have you ever heard the phrase ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’?”
Gemmika (somewhat afraid, because apparently that’s the emotion I provoke in good-looking women):
“Umm, no. Sorry.”
My world was spinning off it’s axis! Did I make the phrase up? Did it really not exist? How can nobody have heard of it?
It’s like I was living in some Bizzaro World!
But no! I wasn’t crazy, I knew what I knew. And I knew I was right.
Gemmika was maybe 19, 22 at the oldest, so that’s her excuse.
But “Glen” & “Jen”? “Glen” will be 32 in January. “Jen” will be 30(?) in December. They’ve both had enough years on this earth to pick up this uber-common phrase. There’s no excuse for them.
Gemmika took our order and left.
“Jen”:
“So don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but what does that even mean?”
“Glen”:
“Yeah.”
I began:
“When someone gifts you a horse, as in gives you the gift of a horse, gives you a free horse…”
“Jen”:
“Oh, I thought you said a gifted horse.”
“Glen”:
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said too.”
Me:
“No, not a gifted horse! This isn’t a horse with a high IQ. This isn’t a horse that got a perfect score on it’s SAT’s. This isn’t a horse that’s a member of Mensa. It’s a gift horse. A gift. Horse.”
“Glen” & “Jen”:
“Oh, okay, so what does it mean?”
I explained it to them much as it is explained here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/don't_look_a_gift_horse_in_the_mouth
And here:
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/don't+look+a+gift+horse+in+the+mouth.html
This origin of the phrase:
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/origins-of-sayings-dont-look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth.htm
…backs up my proclamations to “Glen” & “Jen” that “the phrase has been around for ages!”
“Glen”:
“Okay, so what did you say again about a nipple?”
Do you see what I’m dealing with here folks?
I repeated:
“I won’t look a gift tit in the nipple.”
“Glen” grinned:
“Meaning you’ll take any tit that’s offered to you.”
Me:
“Correct.”
“Jen”:
“See, that makes sense.”
Then “Jen” called her friend to see if the friend had ever heard the phrase. She had.
“Glen” refused to call any of his friends, for fear of looking stupid in front of them. It’s always gotta be a pissing contest with this guy I tell ya.
When Gemmika came back with the appetizers she informed us that she asked her co-worker about it. The co-worker was (thankfully) familiar with the phrase, and had explained it her.
As a quick side note, all the damn waitresses at every Islands I’ve ever been to are crazy attractive. I’ll even go so far as to say that the Islands waitresses put the Hooters girls to shame. Granted Hooters takes the title in the “slut” department, but Islands beats them in the “probably won’t give me syphilis” category, hands down.
So I was proven right by “Jen’s” friend and by Gemmika’s co-worker, though that didn’t stop me from having to answer the question “why a gift horse and not a gift cow”. But despite that, it was good to be me…what can I say, it’s these small victories that get me through each day.
But the real cherry on top…would have been getting Gemmika’s phone number, but we knew before we even began that that was never gonna happen…no, the real cherry on top? I come home and sit down to watch an episode of Royal Pains, during which I’m treated to this bit of dialogue:
“Welcome to the world Jill. In my experience, first rule of charity work – never stare a funding source in the mouth.”
- Lenny
