Humor Post #54 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Here’s another of those stupidissimo  expressions you hear all the time: sick as a dog. What’s with that piece of rot? Daniel has a dog, a collie named Lance. Talk about cool. You can see him doing a magic trick here. Now Lance is about as regular a dog as you can find and one thing that’s easy to say about Lance — he hardly ever gets sick. He goes to the vet like once or twice every year, once for his yearly checkup and shots and once to get shaved for the summer. Almost never for being sick. (Though he did have a bad case of fleas once, thanks to Daniel being too careless, or too cheap, to put flea stuff on him.) Anyway, I can safely say I wish I was as sick as Lance. Man, I’d put doctors out of business!

Now I know there will be a few of you who look up the phrase and you’ll write to say, “Oh, you stupid Crankenfuss, People say that because dogs will eat almost anything and then when they eat something bad for them, they throw up. That’s where the expression comes from.” And I’d fire right back at you, “Fair enough, Bullet Head, but it’s still a dumb expression because whenever I see a dog throw up, he’s over it in about 10 seconds. They get rid of the bad stuff inside and then they’re ready to go on with their walk. I’ve seen it many times. Usually when humans throw up, they call in sick and stay home, and lots of them moan and whine for hours. Not Lance. Within a few minutes, he’s ready to eat again. Sometimes he even wants to eat his own barf! Yeah, that’s pretty sick, I know, but it’s still a sign he’s got a positive attitude. A sure sign of good health, I’d say.”

And on top of all that, he can eat anything he likes and he never ever gets fat. How many of the rest of us can say that?

So here are a few alternatives I’ve come up with for “sick as a dog,” every one of them way more accurate. Feel free to use them. You don’t even have to give me credit.
— Sick as a guy with bubonic plague (Look it up. Those buboes were beyond y-e-c-c-h-h!)
— Sick as an asparagus eater
— Sick as someone who’s forced to listen to Justin Bieber for 5 hours
— Sick as a zombie with the flu (See, they’re already dead, ugly, and starving, and then they get the flu on top of that. That’s gotta hurt!)

And while we’re in this fascinating conversation about dog barf and other sicko stuff, how about that beaut “I’m feeling under the weather”? Hello! Aren’t we all under the weather? Okay maybe if you’re an astronaut or a space alien, you’re not, but by definition the rest of us are. So there’s another cliché to stay clear of.

That’s enough for today. More to come within two days.

From Your Dude with a ‘Tude,
your thinker who’s no stinker,
Dr. Crankenfuss