Some fun with proverbs and aphorisms

Count Dracula is different from the image most people have of him. He’s uncouth, violent and has a filthy temper. When his wife gave birth, the baby boy, once old enough to be placed on his father’s lap, screamed and threw a fit, so much so that the exercise proved impossible. This, of course demonstrates an important truth: the son never sits on the brutish vampire.


Roald Amundsen’s assistant was making up his list of items required for the expedition to the South Pole. He completed the document and read over it several times, but somehow had the feeling that he had forgotten something. He asked Amundsen to check the list. The explorer grinned. “You’ve forgotten the vehicle we’ll be using on the journey,” he said, handing the piece of paper back. “List sled, soon it’s amended.”


Rover, the bloodhound, was a champion tracker. So expert was he that the state police would use only his services, and none other’s. Unfortunately, he was very lazy as well. One day he was urgently required on the other side of the state, but he woke up at such an advanced hour that the fastest car available would never get him there in time to pick up the trail. In desperation, he had to be sent by helicopter, proving once again that it's true: late sleeping dogs fly.


Howler the wolf was starving when he finally chanced upon a fur trapper’s encampment, and found a trapper at work hanging up pelts. Howler charged for the man, but the latter ran and hid inside a small hut. Howler decided that there was in any case quite enough nourishment in the pelts that had been hung up to dry. So he ate the skin, not the skinner.


Ismail is the star player of the football club, having scored fifteen goals in the last twelve matches, and has a salary to match his status. However, in the same team is Amiss, who has scored only eight, but has set up another eight, including several of Ismail’s. Many of the club’s fans bitterly resent Ismail being paid so much more because they’re convinced that Amiss is as good as Ismail.


The barber’s daughter was very pretty and used to visit his shop frequently, sitting there and chatting with the clients. One day the barber fell ill at work and could not attend to his waiting customers. But just then a champion boxer turned up and demanded that his beard be removed at once, for he was being chased by goons whose demands to throw fights he’d refused and who would stop at nothing to get revenge, so he had to disguise himself. The barber’s daughter decided that this was an emergency requiring desperate measures. Accordingly, the boxer was shaved by the belle.


Idiot was the world’s tiniest Chihuahua puppy, and the stupidest – hence his name. One day, while his “owner” was vacuuming the house, he took a slice of cake from the kitchen, trotted with it to the living room carpet, and lay eating it there. So oblivious was he of activity around him that had it not been for the owner’s alertness, she might have discovered that it is possible to Hoover cake and Idiot too.


God was having a bad day at the Garden of Eden. One of the creatures He’d designed, thin-legged and antlered, came to him in despair, complaining bitterly at being chased for his skin, meat and antlers by the pair of apex predators the Lord had created. When there had been only one of the apex predators, the antlered creature said, there had been no problem. But now that God had gone and given it a mate...why, it asked, had God gone and done such a thing? God, hugely embarrassed, listened and tried to worm out of it with a lie: “Frankly, my deer, I didn’t Eve Adam.”


Traffic policeman Sam stopped a car which had just blown a tiny blip on its horn as it drove past him, instead of the full blast as most cars did. Surely enough, on the floor next to the driver, the policeman found a naked woman. “She isn’t a hooker,” the driver insisted. “I’m rescuing her from a gang of rapists and taking her home to her mother.” Sam was not impressed and arrested them both. He knew very well that half a toot is a whore lie.


Educational standards are dropping, as we all know, while terrorist activity continues unabated. Meanwhile, a .gif file circulating online shows a nude woman tossing peanuts into her mouth. Beware – intelligence sources, who do not speak very grammatical English, say that this file is actually loaded with secret Al Qaeda-designed viruses which download onto your computer with every toss of the woman’s peanuts. Therefore, say the intelligence agencies, you should never look a .gif toss in the mouth. 

A hungry cannibal decided to convert his male child into a cake. He mixed the kid’s flesh with batter and commercially available Saccharomyces powder and put it on to bake. In the oven, the cake swelled most satisfactorily. This was no surprise since, as everyone knows, the son rises in the yeast.

Jill was playing with her friends and tore her new dress. Her mother, most upset, handed her a needle and thread and told her to mend it herself. “You tore it, you stitch it,” she said. Poor Jill learned a valuable lesson: as you rip, so shall you sew.

Juan was in bed with his boss’ wife when the boss returned home unexpectedly, and, catching them together, shot Juan. The boss, a keen but average golfer, thus fulfilled a lifetime ambition: he made, at last, a hole in Juan.

Mike kidnapped Ann and tried to make a getaway by balloon. But Ann punctured the balloon with a drawing tack, forcing Mike to descend and showing the entire world that the pin is mightier than the soared.

Mr Rudd was so unpleasant that everyone called him Awful. He and his wife, Marnie, most unexpectedly received invitations to a birthday bash and readily accepted. Awful and his Marnie R soon partied.

Mary was so plain she despaired of ever finding a man and so decided to join a convent. At the last moment, though, one of her friends advised her to treat her face with a leaf of Aloe vera split into two. This worked such wonders for her skin that she found a boyfriend almost at once, proving again that half Aloe is better than nun.

The animals had a big wine party. All attended except the otter, who was a recluse. The kind-hearted animals didn’t want him to miss out on the party, so – since they lacked bottles – they attached a pipe to the barrel of wine and pulled the other end all the way to the otter’s home. Once there, though, the otter refused to touch a drop, claiming to be a teetotaller. The other animals therefore realised that you can take a hose to the otter but you cannot make him drink.     

Dave came home from the golf course breathing heavily. Asked by his wife why, he said falsely that he had been hitting the ball so hard he had knocked it into the receptacle on each first or second stroke. His wife wasn’t impressed because huff the truth is a hole lie.

Abu Hassan is a con man who finds his prey among the top-level business class, whom he attracts by throwing parties where champagne and delicacies like the finest sturgeon’s eggs are provided. Although he is personable and hospitable, you should never judge Abu by his caviar.

A cattle herder at a ranch ran into such financial problems he accumulated all of a thousand debts. His friend, a Native American warrior, also ran into debt –just one, though. Both men decided to work off their debts by colouring cloth in the local textile factory. The cowherd dyes a thousand debts, the brave dyes but one.     

An experiment to bring three famous poets from the dead went disastrously wrong. Although Homer materialised onstage in the middle of a Scorpions concert, Shakespeare and Goethe actually emerged from the past inside the body of the President of the United States. One should not be disheartened since a bard in the band is worth two in the Bush.

Harry had body art of a naked woman on his arm. His new wife ordered him to get rid of the “dirty” piece of artwork, but he understandably refused. Sometimes a man’s got tattooed what a man’s got tattooed.

My dad, whom I call Da, hates helicopters. Just about every day this winter, a helicopter flies low over this town, and my dad runs out into the snowy street, shaking his fists at it and swearing. He finally comes back streaming with sweat despite the freezing cold. Yeah, the whirlybird gets Da warm. 

There was a peasant called Hatch whom the king decided to ennoble to the rank of Count in gratitude for services provided. However, the other nobles resented the elevation of a commoner to their ranks and suggested his bravery be tested first. Therefore the king asked Hatch to lead the cavalry charge in the next battle, but Hatch refused. The king should have known that one shouldn’t Count one’s Hatch before he chickens.

Jack and Jill had such an acrimonious divorce that when the judge ordered the equal distribution of their properties between them, Jack took an electric saw and chopped their home in two. A large part of the house promptly collapsed, since a house divided against itself will not stand.

A wine of ancient and precious vintage has only one drawback – it deposits great quantities of sediment. The wine is so famous that everyone is extremely careful with it: they all know better than to spill the booze that lays the olden dregs.   

A new barber in town attracted nine clients on his first day in business. This he did by getting his shrewish wife to serve them free alcohol. He made the news headlines, naturally: BITCH WITH WINE SHAVES NINE.

X and Y were arguing about whose toddler was cleverer. Finally they decided on a test. Each child was handed a feather, something neither had ever seen before, to see what they did with it. X’s daughter wove hers into her hair and wore it as a decoration, but Y’s son simply stuck his up his nose. This mortified Y, but it shouldn’t have. He should have remembered that it’s Y’s child that nose his own feather.

"Red" Richardson was a man who seldom returned money he borrowed. One particular lender who suffered at his hands was Dan, who stopped lending him any more. Soon the word went out that Dan does not leave by Red a loan.