GREMLINS IN MY ALERTS!

Okay AOL THIS MEANS WAR!  You return all my Alerts immediately or I'll write more poetry, you hear?  This is maddening, just absolutely ... what's that word ... oh yeah, maddening - THIS IS MADDENING!!!!  It's 2 a.m. and I can't sleep, I shall TRY then see what the morrow brings, but if they don't work, if they don't, if they ... why have a service that doesn't serve I ask you?  I'm fit to be tied.  What does that mean, anyway, "fit to be tied" I think I'll vent some of this anger and write about some of our everyday sayings and their origins, now THERE'S something of interest lol.

"Don't let the cat out of the bag" that comes from the days of old when Knights were bold and England kept it's prisoners well-beaten.  The cat-o-nine tails was a commonly used torture device and was kept in a bag by the warder's seat.  When inmates would talk to each other and conspire for food and other non-essentials, they'd say, "Be careful ye don't let the cat out of the bag!"  There.

"Shiver me timbers!" once again brings us to the mother country, where the ships were made from treated wood, and each time a cannon ball would hit, the wooden timbers would shake and rattle on the ship.  We use it like, if we're startled or amazed, like I am now at this computer.  There.

"The short end of the stick" I spent a little time as a kid trying to find it, no kidding.  Obviously originated in the "drawing straws" thing, but feels like what AOL is giving me right now.  There!

"Never look a gift-horse in the mouth" comes from AOL's generous-sounding offer to lower our costs to almost nil but they "disappear" your Alerts in exchange.  ARGH!!!!