Brothers and Sisters: “Grapes of Wrath”
Holly’s incredulity switches to anger as she snaps that Rebecca “could have been in a ditch, or anywhere,” and can I just ask why the imagined-demise location of choice among mothers is a ditch? Because it’s always a ditch, am I right? Did your mother ever say, when you came home past curfew, that she thought you were dead in a parking lot, or a mall, or a pond? No. For all she knew, you could have been DEAD IN A DITCH SOMEWHERE…and don’t forget the use of “somewhere,” because it’s never a ditch near where you live, because you don’t have any ditches near where you live, your mother has never even seen a ditch, it’s just something her mother said to her. Mothers of the world gotta switch that up a little. “You could have been STUFFED IN A CHIMNEY!” “You could have been EATEN BY FIRE ANTS!” If you’re going to wait up, use the time; get creative.
Tags: sites TV writing
Dear Sars,
I think we are sisters-from-different-misters! My mom was hysterical with the whole dead-in-a-ditch thing! With seven of us, she conserved her creativity for more pressing matters. Thanks for bringing the memory!
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms! Thanks for everything!
My sister and I wonder the same thing about the ubiquitous use of “hit by a bus.” It’s t.v. shorthand for random, quick, no-chance-this-person-will-just-break-a-few-ribs-and-pull-through-they’re-really-a-goner-and-we-mean-it accidental death.
It’s also every annoying coworker’s example of senseless death, “Well who knows? Tomorrow I might get hit by a bus.”
What was the go-to example before there were busses? “Well who knows? Tomorrow I might get crushed by an ox cart? eaten by a mountain lion? stricken with the pox?” Or did they simply not need one before the advent of t.v. and the annoying coworker?
My mother was also a fan of “lying in a gutter.”
The one liners and food fight were SO great in this episode! I hope ABC keeps this show going….
I think “dead in a ditch somewhere” might be where you end up after you get hit by that bus.
My friend woke up one morning bleeding in a ditch. His mother was so right.
While people were often “dead in a ditch”, my grandmother was also a big fan of “if it was a snake it woulda bit ya.”
Since my mom was the one staying out late every night, I never had to hear that “dead in a ditch” stuff. But my grandmother was fond of “You should be ‘shamed of youself!” And when I got older, my dad was all “I kept wondering if I should call the police and put out an All Points Bulletin!”
I actually almost ended up ‘dead in a ditch’ once! We have a lot of drainage(?) ditches along our roads in the practically-reclaimed-swampland of my hometown. I hit a bridge section of the road after a big snowstorm, went from dry ruts to thick slush and skidded 90 degrees, almost ending up sliding into a ditch filled to the top with slush. We also used to play in railroad track ditches after school, but we never found any corpses. Now that I think about it, it’s not fair for moms to tease us like that and not deliver. ‘Cause really, who doesn’t want their own version of “Stand By Me”‘s corpse-poking field trip?
Concerning the coworker bus theory: I decided it was too depressing to say all the time, so I switched to “here’s where I posted all those documents in case I get kidnapped by gypsies . . . or something.”