We Never Had That in Our Family

By Elaine Viets

Families develop their own shorthand. A single phrase from an old story can communicate volumes of anger, joy or pride. We don’t have to keep telling – and hearing – the same story over and over.

Here are some of my family phrases:

Even the water tastes better: Grandma Vierling was our storybook grandma. Barely five feet tall, Grandma was funny and loving. She was plump, with a generous lap and an equally big heart.  We kids called her "the good Grandma" and we loved to visit her. Grandma was a masterful Southern cook who made biscuits like warm clouds, fried chicken and baked mouth-watering fruit pies. I divided the summer by her homemade pies. We should be nearing blackberry pie season soon.

My little brother said, "Even the water tastes better at Grandma’s house."

That became our family code for anything impossibly good.

We never had that in our family: Grandmother Viets was a tall, stern German who cleaned for recreation. Her waxed floors were slippery as a skating rink. She disapproved of my father’s "mixed" marriage. My mother was one-quarter Irish, an inferior race in Grandmother Viets’ eyes. Grandmother was proud to be all German.

She blamed her grandchildren’s physical flaws on my mother’s "inferior" blood. When I needed glasses in grade school, Grandmother Viets said, "We never had that in my family." When I had flat feet and needed special shoes, Grandmother unlaced her Enna Jettick to show me her superior arched foot. "Look at that arch," she said. "We never had flat feet in our family."

Grandma’s phrase became a family joke, though I didn’t see the humor at age nine.

Yours and ours:  When one of us kids misbehaved, Mom would tell my father, "Your daughter was sent home from school with a note for talking in class."

When I did something right, it was, "Our daughter got an A in English."

Don and I don’t have children, but we use a version of that. When Mystery claws the sofa, I tell him, "Your cat ripped up the couch cushion." But when visitors praise her beauty, she’s "our cat."

What Clydesdale? Don and I were walking through a St. Louis supermarket when I saw a life-size plastic replica of a mascot for the Anheuser-Busch brewery in a beer display. "Look at that Clydesdale," I said.

Don, lost in thought, asked, "What Clydesdale?"

What did Larry say? I overlook things, too. Don told me a joke he heard in a bar, where the bartender was named Larry. The joke sailed over my head. "What did Larry say?" I asked.

That’s our family phrase when I miss something obvious.

What are your family phrases, Femmes?

 

Comments

[Karen in Ohio]

Oh, so many examples. But thanks ever so much for the Enna Jetticks ad! Both my grandmothers, and my great grandmother, wore those. My "good grandma" wore the t-strap kind, which were way more fashion-forward, and they went better with her fur stoles, dontcha know.

[Elaine Viets]

Grandmother Viets and my Great Aunts liked the laceup ones, Karen. I knew them only as "old lady shoes." I wonder what today's generation thinks are in that category.

[Karen in Ohio]

Grandma Brenner, who was the youngest of the three, not only wore the lace-up ones, but she never wore a bra, always wore shirtwaist housedresses, and had her hair in a hairnet at all times. Grandpa was 18 years older than she, maybe that was part of it.

"Old lady shoes" now are Aerosoles, Easy Spirit, Munro, et al.

[Elaine Viets]

Housedresses. I forgot about those. I guess sweats have taken their place.

[lil Gluckstern]

I swear by my Easy Spirits, I just try to wear them with a little pizazz. My family was was from Europe, and despite living in this wonderful country (which saved his life), my Father was a snob about everything in the United States. Everything European was better. It was tiresome :)

[Charlaine Harris]

When I was a child, I once told my aunts (Vivian and Georgia May) that I had "changed my other mind" about some plan I'd had. That became a family phrase for . . . well, forever.

[Elaine Viets]

I'm of two minds about that, Charlaine.

[Elaine Viets]

Lil, Easy Spirits are comfortable. And I agree -- that everything is better in Europe does get old.

[Toni L.P. Kelner]

We have, "too many apples."

A few years ago, Val had to do a book report in which the report itself was to be written on these pages with the outline of an apple. The teacher gave them two or three pages, but Val was afraid that wouldn't be enough. I assured her we could photocopy more. So I did a couple more for her. Later in the week, she wanted more. More the next day. Finally, late on the evening before the project was due, she wanted more. I finally thought to ask just what she was doing. It turned out she wasn't just giving the brief synopsis of the book that was required, but instead giving a detailed retelling of the book. I explained what it meant to give a BRIEF synopsis, gave her a fresh sheet, and she was done in fifteen minutes.

From that time on, if I think she's overthinking a project or doing far more work than required or wanted, I ask, "Are you doing too many apples?"

[Mario in DC]

Shiela entered our lives as a bumble-pup when I was sixteen; it didn't take long for her to become a full-grown St Bernard, as loving a being as you'd ever hope to meet. Big as she was, though, arguments frightened her -- not that our family was much given to those, but occasionally irritation could surface. Shiela would become more and more nervous, until she quietly, tentatively, plaintively said: "Woof?" That became our family "word" for "I love you, we're both getting just a tad testy, let's sorta back off and begin again, shall we?" Just a quiet little "woof" sound ...

[Elaine Viets]

What a sweet story, Mario. We had a cat, Elsah, who would get upset if Don and I had words. She would nip me on the ankle to make me stop.

[Elaine Viets]

Good one, Toni.

[Storyteller Mary]

Mom and Dad had a slew of traditional phrases like "Fool me once . . ." but Mom would say "I wish I had that (house) . . and they had a better one."
We also would grab catch phrases from TV -- my favorite, "Upset? Who's upset? I like applesauce in my hair." It covered any situation that might otherwise cause a meltdown.

[Clare]

It withers your mouth. A simple phrase but with happy memories.

My Grandma tried an unfamiliar dry wine one Christmas. She took a mouthful, pulled a face and said, "oh it withers your mouth." Not missing an opportunity, my cheeky Grandpa said, "quick, give her some more".

[Elaine Viets]

Your grandparents sound like quite a couple, Clare. My grandpa used to call Grandma's pancakes "tire patches," but he ate enough of them he had his own spare tire, though Grandma never mentioned that.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

So funny! Love these. When we would go on family outings, parents in the front seat and kids in the back, we'd get just as far as the end of our driveway, and my Dad would tun to us and say: "How do you like it so far?"

So now we always say that whenever we leave the house together..

YEARS AND YEARS ago we kids gave my Dad a fabulous ceramic bowl--it was made of figurines of ducks. You had to be there--its fabulous. Anyway--WE adored it, but he was baffled and said thank you in a kind of bemused way. He opened his next gift, a sweater, and smiled. Do you like it? We eagerly asked.

"It's better than a duck bowl," he said.

SO now, whenever there's a gift-or anything!--that's not exactly what we'd hoped for..we say "It's better than a duck bowl."

ANd I still have the duck bowl.

[krisneri]

I laughed at this. Since I'm a member of that same inferior race, when I first started dating Joe, his parents had to stop making bigoted remarks about the Irish, at least in front of me. Since my in-laws did come to care for me, I guess they discovered we're not all that bad.

One of our expressions is "What's with Helen?" We use it when any of our pets behave in some way odder than usual. It was a weird line of dialogue that struck a strange note in some awful movie we saw years ago, and we've used it about generations of dogs and cats.

[Elaine Viets]

Kris, when my grandparents got married in 1916 the priest tried to talk them out of that "mixed marriage." They were both Catholic, but he said Irish and Germans couldn't mix. They were married more than 50 years.