Weird Things My California-Bar-Member Mother Says (expanded and updated)

• a good door, but not a good window—n. someone who is standing in front of the television or some otherwise interesting sight so the people in back cannot see
• ¡Ábrete la boca!—Open your mouth!
• ants in one's pants—ADHD symptoms
• ar-kaan-saww (said with a lilt)—Arkansas
• awnry face—(1) a comical ornery face; (2) the hairy eyeball or evil eye
  
• batty—the OED says it can colloquially mean balmy or dotty and cites the earliest use of the word with this meaning from 1903. My mother only ever uses this word in the phrase, "You're driving me batty!"
  
• big ears flappin' in the breeze—Eavesdroppers have them.
  
• birthday suit—nakedness, as in, "He's in his birthday suit and everything's hanging out."
  
• bored outta one's gourd—bored stiff
• boob tube—television
• boughten—adj. store-bought
  
• broiled cheese sandwich—a simple Welsh rabbit or cheese on toast, always made with cheddar; different from a grilled cheese sandwich in that it only has one slice of bread and is prepared under a broiler
• broughten—past participle of bring
• criminy—(KRĪ-mə-nē) "A vulgar exclamation of astonishment: now somewhat archaic," which dates back to at least 1681 (OED).
  
• crotchety old lady—a menopausal woman
• cruisin' for a bruisin'—to be annoying on purpose
• death warmed over—To feel or look "like death warmed over" is to feel or look exhausted and sick.
  
• dickens—a euphemism dating to 1598 for "devil, deuce" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
  
• do what one shouldn't—euphemism for an extramarital, or sometimes premarital, sexual relationship: "He did what he shouldn't with his secretary and then his wife divorced him." (This is in spite of the fact that she told me about the facts of life when I was four.)
• Do your nose run and your feet smell? You must be built upside down!
• eyes are bigger than one's stomach—Someone whose eyes are bigger than his or her stomach puts more food on his or her plate than he or she can possibly eat: "My eyes are bigger than my stomach, so my mother controlled my dinner portion sizes until I was at least sixteen."
• falling apart—to have a long list of aches and irritations that sound hypochondriac: "Your tummy hurts, your knee twitches, and your arms itch? You must be falling apart!"
• fā-vər-ĪT—n. favorite
• fight tooth and nail—v. (1) to resist strongly: "I tried to put Jim in timeout, and he fought me tooth and nail." (2) to strive aggressively for something: "Joe is in court fighting tooth and nail to get his kids back."
  
• funny farm—insane asylum; often, "Take me away to the funny farm!" (Her father adds that "the little men in white coats" would take someone to the funny farm, and their charge is usually me.)
• Go stand on your head and stack BBs.—Please find something to do besides bug me.
• goomy bears—gummy bears
• Hold your horsies.—Be patient.
• hungry enough that one could eat a horse—more disturbing when I realized that they eat horses in Spain, where my mother went on her mission
  
• I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.—I love you lots.
• It woulda bi'cha if it were a snake!—It's right under your nose.
• None of your beeswax!—None of your business.
• Ohwa Tagoo Siam—a mean trick she played on me when I was seven. Not coincidentally, we have a Siamese-looking mutt-cat named Tagoo.
  
• old and decrepit—of people, old enough to get achy joints
• older than the hills—of people and things, very old
  
• pokey—small, cramped, and dark
• ragamuffin—"old-fashioned informal a dirty untidy child in torn clothes" (Cambridge Dictionary Online). The OED further explains that Ragamuffin was the name of a demon during the Middle Ages, but had come to mean "a person (originally and chiefly a man or boy) of a ragged, dirty, and (frequently) disreputable appearance" by 1586. The muffin part of the word likely comes from the Anglo-Norman malfelon, which means devil or scoundrel.
  
• rain galoshes—rubber Wellington boots
• shooty—interjection, dim. of shoot
• slow poke—"circa 1848: a very slow person" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
• space cadet—someone who often forgets things
  
• That's enough from the peanut gallery.—I didn't ask for your opinion.
• The girls said . . .—One of my two daughters said this, but I can't remember which one (see you guys).
• This place looks like a hurricane hit it.—Our house is too messy.
• Turk or turkey—(1) childish troublemaker; (2) jerk; (3) womanizer. This may come from Turk, as in, someone from Turkey, which by 1536 had come in English to be "applied to any one having qualities attributed to the Turks; a cruel, rigorous, or tyrannical man; any one behaving as a barbarian or savage; one who treats his wife hardly; a bad-tempered or unmanageable man," but the OED also says that in early-twentieth-century American slang, Turk or turkey was a derogatory word for an Irishman and by 1951 could also mean "a stupid, slow, inept, or otherwise worthless person." So who knows where my mother got it from.
  
• you guys—blanket singular and plural, second- and third-person pronoun meaning any or all of the following: you, my older daughter; you, my younger daughter; you, both of my daughters; either you or your sister; or your sister (see The girls said . . .)