Idioms
Last year, my wife “lost her cool” when I got “cold feet” over replacing our old furnace and AC system
The English language is amazing because there are always several ways to say the same thing. A “walk in the park” can be “a stroll in a nature preserve” or even an “amble in the playing field”. Idioms are also popular, but they are often more obscure and could require some explanation to those who take things literally. For example, the idiom “preaching to the choir” means that the speaker is making an argument to someone who already agrees with their point of view. Many idioms advise against procrastination like “He who hesitates is lost” and “The early bird gets the worm”. The most popular idioms involve the weather or temperature, and this is where I begin to get confused because they seem to apply to HVAC systems. The idiom “blow hot and cold” is supposed to mean a person who keeps changing their opinion of something, but it describes perfectly what my HVAC system does. The phrase “break out in a cold sweat” may mean what happens to people with anxiety problems but it is also what happens on cool humid mornings when my air conditioning system decides to take a break and condensate forms on my walls and windows. Last year, my wife “lost her cool” when I got “cold feet” over replacing our old furnace and AC system. I was as “stubborn as a mule” against paying for a new HVAC system when I decided that an expensive repair was the better option. That caused my HVAC provider to turn to my wife and exclaim, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” That idiom caused me to get “hot under the collar” as we shivered waiting for the ill-advised furnace repair.