I guess I get the phrase “dumber than a soup sandwich.” Its meaning is pretty transparent: it would be dumb to attempt making a sandwich out of soup, and anything dumber than that must be TRULY dumb.

But what the hell is “dumber than a box of hammers” all about? Am I meant to postulate that hammers have a low IQ? Hello, phrase inventors, hammers do not have brains. It goes without saying that even one of them would have the maximum amount of stupidity possible. I’m not sure how having multiple instances of infinite stupidity sitting around in a box is any more effective than one instance of it.

I also take issue with “one fry short of a happy meal.” As though a person could honestly assess their sack of fatty foods and, in doing so, notice the lack of that one, solitary fry. As if, in perceiving the lack of that one fry, they would say to themselves, “Well that’s just crazy!” Perhaps while slapping their right thigh with their right hand.

I just can’t envision that.

Come to think of it, maybe we should amend that soup sandwich one to “dumber than an attempt at making a soup sandwich.”

Because if you think about it, managing to do something as impossibly stupid as the creation of a soup sandwich would be fucking brilliant.