Everyone has catch phrases linked to an inside joke. Back in Clemson our house probably had a new one each week, hell we even had the word of the week on our dry erase board! Anyway, I was driving to work today and the talk show host that was filling in for Glenn Beck was going off about how Christmas is continuously being downplayed (I will reference the article that got him all lit up at the end of this piece). On signing off for a commercial break he said “If you were a druid I would be wishing you a Scintillating Solstice……You’ve got to be joking!”. This reminded me of one of the phrases that one of my buddies back in Clemson and I picked up one day while driving around. This buddy, Adam Busch (Notorious for his head going through a certain wall, but that is a story for another time), and I were driving back to the house which served as Old Man Central, 300 woodland Circle (home of many a furniture in the yard parties…ahh the memories) when we drove by the local burger joint which is right next to a huge field. The field was well overgrown with the standard tall yellow wheat looking growth. As we drove by we saw a guy walking towards this huge, at least 3 acre, overgrown field with a push mower. I slowly uttered “You have GOT to be joking!” and this sent Busch and me into hysterical fits of laughter. This was the first time “You have got to be joking” was used and we didn’t think that much of it. That is until we were driving by a local church with the standard huge parking lot which had been weathered and had cracks all over the surface. As we approached the other side of the parking lot we saw an older man with graying hair with a pick axe, shovel and wheel barrow (what the hell is a Barrow?!) starting to remove some of the cracked pavement with said tools. This immediately brought out another “You have GOT to be joking” and another bought of laughter. From then on when it seemed that someone was beginning an impossible task or heading towards uncertain stupidity, you would hear one of us utter the phrase. It still makes me chuckle thinking of that guy with the push mower heading to the field and us thinking that he was going to take it on.

The article I mentioned is here and might I say, it’s about time!

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