Idioms I Hate #217: "Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic"

In a Tea Party rally this past weekend, Palin, using her tried and true playbook, railed against President Obama for spending the country into a future fiscal Armageddon, and the GOP for not cutting taxes on all poor people, rather than just most.

Such stories are entertaining for me these days, as opposed to frightening, when I believed she would seek, and get, the Republican primary nomination. The only reason the story stuck in my head this time was one of her idioms:

“Yeah, I’ll take on the GOP establishment. What more can they say about us, you know?” she said. “We didn’t elect you just to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. We didn’t elect you to just stand back and watch Obama redistribute those deck chairs. What we need is for you to stand up, GOP, and fight.” via today's Chicago Tribune

I've always liked that metaphor. Even if it's a bad one.

Not that that's Ms. Palin's fault. It's just that, if you put it in context, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is a lot like playing music on the Titanic, or serving drinks on the Titanic. It's a lot better than some of the things people did in an effort to save the Titanic. Or themselves, for that matter.

To the best of my knowledge, the saying was cooked up sometime in the 1970s, when some politician was talking about his campaign. I don't know that anyone was rearranging chairs anywhere on the Titanic, but if we're going to keep using the ocean liner as a metaphor for anything doomed regardless of our efforts, then deck chair arranging doesn't actually sound so stupid.

Some other stuff people did on the Titanic, as per my exhaustive research (that is, my fuzzy memories on James Cameron's Titanic:

Fought over life boats
Fought over life jackets
Shot each other
Yelled at each other
Fell overboard and died
Drew each other in the nude
Fell in love and had sex in the storage space

Rearranging chairs in the midst of all this seems like a desperate attempt to retain one's sanity and sense of order in the face of impending madness, death, mob rule and rampant rich-person adultery. And if our current economy really is doomed to die a watery death and plummet to the depths of the ocean, then whoever's holding the chair-arranging seminar, sign me up. I need to blow off some steam.

Rejected Fortune Cookie Submissions

--"It's been ten minutes. You'd better call home and check on the kids before something happens."

--"We can recommend a good proctologist."

--"If you had the chicken, see the hostess before you leave."

--"Time to pull the plug on that machine that's keeping Gram Gram alive."

--"If it oozes and hurts, you've got at least a few months."

--"They're talking about you."

Rejected New Yorker Cartoons

Every issue, the New Yorker hosts their Write a Caption contest, where you get to supply the joke to the already-drawn cartoon. I've entered this contest every damn month my entire life, and they have yet to accept any of my witty, cultured, erudite submissions. If you need further proof of an elitist, pinko bias to the nation's oldest arts and literature magazine, I don't know what else I can show you.


Submission: "If I do this long enough, his penis stands up."


Submission: "If I reach over and grab you, your penis will stand up."


Submission: "My hair is standing up because you're so hot. And if you grab it, my penis will stand up too."

A Humble Suggestion for Eliminating, Revising and Replacing Textspeak

In short, stop it, you idiots. Every acronym and code for a reaction contributes to the further erosion of our verbal and written communication skills. Or do you want Orwell proved right?

But speaking politely, The Flannel Diaries' Social Research Department (a subsidiary of Flannel Diaries Social Research and Development) has devised some "training wheel" replacements for your favorite emoticons and text codes so as to make our transition back to the use of nouns, adjectives and verbs that much easier. Basically, every time you feel the urge to communicate in SMS, consult this list (devised through a painstaking Google search and early morning coffee binge) instead. It's what you're really trying to say after all. Keep these for handy reference, and in no time, you'll be reacquainted with our old friend Mr. Word.

LOL: "Your comments have just elicited an audible reaction indicating amusement on my part."

G2G: "American Idol is on now and I must watch it or I'll die."

TMI: "All I said was, 'How did the honeymoon go?' Put your pants back on."

AAMOF: "I've just made a completely imbecilic point, and am now about to hype it up with manufactured facts of my own device." (Favorite of Tso)

SLAP: "Yes, we should definitely go to the mall and hang out."

TTFN: Males--"I like to boink guys in the butt."; Females--"I like to hang around guys that boink other guys in the butt." (Another favorite of Tso's)

ROTFLMAO: "Those Youtube videos are awesome! Did you see that? That guy totally punched himself in the crotch!"

OMG: "Gracious!"

WTF: "Goodness gracious!"

Slightly altered copy ghost written for a client today:

Real Men Moisturize

by Kara Sellalot, Retail Representative

My friend Mark laughed out loud when he saw me putting together a list of beauty tips for men. At the top: “Guys, make sure you keep your hands and nails presentable by applying hand cream several times a day.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Guys don’t do that kind of thing.”

I just smiled and waited. Sure enough, his girlfriend, who’d overheard him, walked in the door.

“You do need hand cream, Mark,” she said, grabbing one of his hands and pointing at it accusingly. “Do you have any idea how rough your hands are? I feel like you’re wearing garden gloves when we get all mushy.”

“Hey, I’m a man,” he asserted. “I don’t use hand cream. It’s not my thing.”

Mark may be a man. But he also likes handjobs. Ten minutes later, Mark was using Biotone hand cream. It keeps hangnails at bay, making him more professional-looking. It softened his cuticles, making his hands much more appealing at first glance. And it helps him avoid infections, which his hands were prone to because of the skin’s weakness due to dryness and cracks.

I left Mark, Mr. I’m-not-a-hand-cream-guy, with two bottles of moisturizer and a beaming, happy girlfriend.

"But why do his hands matter if you're the one doing the servicing?" I asked innocently.

"Shut up," she hissed. "You got your commission, didn't you?"