Think Again

Sometimes words and phrases are so ingrained into our culture that we don't realize how weird they are. Like, when I was a kid, I used to drink chocolate SlimFasts for breakfast. No, my mom didn't tell me I was fat and I didn't have a complex about my weight (I mean, not til high school like every other normal female, duh). I drank one with a balanced breakfast--it was just chocolate milk with lots of vitamins. Then, one day, I thought about the actual name--slim fast. Named as such because that's the goal of the drink. Wow, was I slow, or what?

This happened to me a lot as a kid. I would take a proper name at face value and not really think too much about where it came from or why something had that particular name. But it happens to me in adulthood as well. For example, yesterday, I spent a good five minutes pondering the following phrase, "Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?" I'm no wrestling fan, but, come on, no one got through middle school without hearing this in some form. I accepted it, both that boys my age couldn't resist bleating it on the playground, and the words themselves. But, for a popular catchphrase, it really doesn't make any sense. Rocks can't cook. I mean, if the phrase was, "Can you smell what The Chef is cooking?," that would be much more believable.

Some of these easily acceptable titles and phrases are just plain odd. The song, "It's Raining Men," for example. Would I really want men falling from the sky? Wouldn't they just splat on the ground? Am I taking this too literally?

Anyway, I guess there is no real point to this post, except to ask: has anyone else had this experience where you just accept something and then think about it later and realize how obvious that literal meaning you missed was?