Skip to main content

Are you a liar, thief, cheat, or drunk?

Never lie, steal, cheat or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.  Old Irish Drinking Toast - also quoted in movies like: Hitch, Leap Year, Love is a Four Letter Word, etc.  

Here's the original toast from the Irish:
"May you never lie, steal, cheat or drink.
But if you must lie, lie in each other's arms.
If you must steal, steal kisses.
If you must cheat, cheat death.
And if you must drink, drink with us, your friends."


I like it.  It's the best kind of "degenerate" to be.  If I'm going to be a liar then I want to be the kind that spends my life lying in the embrace of my husband.  If I'm going to be a thief I hope, I pray, I'm only the kind that steals away the negative and bad from the lives of others so that joy can replace it.  Cheating death is not really an issue with me, however. We all die and our days and the length of them are determined so I don't think you can cheat death. But I do think we should cheat a life lived in mundane ways.  (Seems to be a theme with me this week - perhaps my travels overseas inspired this talk of living a fuller life.)  And I want to drink deeply the life I've been given.  I want to take long gulps and let it drip down my chin even.  I want to be drunk on this life that is waiting for me to grab hold of it and savor it.  If I'm going to be called a liar, thief, cheat or drunk then I certainly hope it's in reference to living life large.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment. 

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.