Or rather, not mine, but my parents'. Every time I see one of those minivans with a DVD player in the back and a bunch of kids sitting there passively zoned out, I feel a wave of nostalgia for the occasions during my childhood when I was not getting pummeled in the backseat by one of my siblings. (It happened, every once in a while, I'm just sayin'.) Because say what you will, but we were kids who were into word games. Or really anything that involved wracking our brains on the long rides down to Dothan to visit our grandparents every other weekend. Sure, we became freakishly good at Jeopardy! and, even more impressive, Wheel of Fortune, as they were broadcast over the radio. But we also loved trying to create impossibly long lists of things we thought were funny. And one of them, at one point (I think when we were driving around some city in North Carolina), was trying to come up with as many expressions as we could that were similar to "cruisin' for a bruisin'." I tried to recreate that list one day a few years back, and just remembered it. I am really, really proud of what our teenaged brains could accomplish. To wit:
cruisin’ for a bruisin’
achin' for a breakin'
yearnin’ for a burnin’
brayin’ for a filletin’
askin’ for a taskin’
pleadin’ for a bleedin’
callin’ for a maulin’
antsin’ for a pantsin’
aimin’ for a maimin’
singin’ for a flingin’
searchin’ for a besmirchin’
yappin’ for a slappin’
itchin’ for a switchin’
jumpin’ for a thumpin’
cryin’ for a fryin’
soundin’ for a poundin’
paradin’ for an upbraidin’
leanin’ toward a beanin’
entreatin’ for a beatin’
croonin’ for a harpoonin’
Bonus points for anyone who can add to the list....
