Operation: Stick Shake

In a culture otherwise rich in colorful aphorisms and clichés, I dare you to find a more entertaining adage than, “I’ve got more (insert noun) than you can shake a stick at.”

The hilarity of just such a concept struck me the other day. Imagine a frail, long-bearded man who shakes his stick at things that he finds personally offensive in society, however harmless they may be. In some cases, he finds that said things are so overwhelming in the world that he cannot muster the endurance to keep shaking his stick at them. He used to try, though—boy how he tried, but over the years his arthritic joints gave way to incrementally shorter regressions until he was content enough to say, “There are more women wearing pants today than I can shake a stick at.”

This expression is less ideal when confronted by a large quantity of a thing at one instance. For instance, “there are more gay guys at this rally than I can shake a stick at.” For starters, the context in this case is far too ambiguous. Furthermore, shaking a stick at a large quantity of thing is relative to distance (e.g., it may take an entire day to shake your stick at a herd of beached sperm whales if standing up close to them, while one could accomplish the same task in a matter of seconds while shaking the stick at a distance of a few hundred feet away.)

More recently, the term has been used to denote an overabundance of something as a positive thing, however disturbing having such a large quantity of that thing may be (e.g., I’ve got more episodes of Walker Texas Ranger on Tivo here than you can shake a stick at).

So if you’ve never experienced the joy of shaking a stick at an excessive amount of something that either delights or disturbs you, if only to see if it is an amount that is less than, greater than, or tantamount to your ability at which to shake a stick, well friend, I’d say it’s about time you’ve begun.

Happy Christmas, Harry.