Not Quite Right...

I enjoy mixed metaphors. My friend Kelly said them all the time when we worked nights together. "That guy's not the brightest knife in the drawer," she would say. "Don't count a leopard before its spots." Once she said, "That guy's gonna bake his own bubble and burst." That wasn't so much a mixed metaphor as . . . well, I don't know what that was. My favorite was the time she told our boss, "You just have to grab the horn by the balls..."

If Kelly was the queen of mixed metaphors, my husband is the crown prince. They're not always metaphors. He often asks if my mother is going to be volunteering this week at the local homeless shelter, what he calls the "Doris Day House." I imagine my mother and Doris, tucking a loose strand of frosty white hair back into her beehive, dressed in a tight sheath by Irene, washing dishes together at the kitchen sink and singing "Que Sara Sara, Whatever Will Be Will Be."

"Well, I tell him, I don't know about Doris Day, but I think she'll be at the DOROTHY Day House on Wednesday."

Today we were talking at the lunch table. "I wish I had a million dollars," I said. "Hot dog!"

"What's that from?" Matt asked.

"It's a Wonderful Life," I said.

"I remember that movie," he said. "At the end when they're having the house party, a bunch of punks show up and have a big fight."

I did a quick scan of my memory. George Bailey. Comes home. Whole town. Waiting for him. Everyone cries. Bell rings on Christmas tree. Zuzu: "Teacher says, 'every time a bell rings, and angel gets its wings.'" George: "Atta boy, Clarence!" Everyone sings: "Auld Lang Syne." The end.

Punks? I think. Big fight?

"I'm sorry," I say. "Could you describe when in the the classic Christmas movie a group of punks come to beat up George and Mary Bailey and their angelic offspring?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"It's a Wonderful Life."

"Oh," he said. "I thought you said, 'Some Kind of Wonderful.'"

The end.