Oil Outta Your Lamp

Okay, maybe not oil out of YOUR lamp, but it's definitely sucking mine dry. A friend of mine from church taught me this phrase, and it not only was enlightening, it was hilarious. I made a comment -- not altogether disparaging -- about a stooped-over gentleman in our ward. My friend said, "Oil outta your lamp, Laura. Oil outta your lamp."

I loved that she was that up front with me. I also loved getting a new perspective to an old principle. I've always thought about needing to add oil to my lamp, but have never had occasion to think about oil coming out of it. It makes sense though that oil would come out of it correspondingly, or else I'd have the world's largest lamp. Which I don't. At all. So it's a good way, a nice quick reminder way to remind myself that I'm not always on my best behavior.

I told my bff about my new perspective and catch phrase, and she laughed and laughed -- simply because it's one of the things she and I excel at together -- taking oil out of our respective lamps while making observations (e.g. gossiping, etc.) about people. The best occasion we had to use this phrase with each other was when we went to the Mormon Prom. There were some *ahem* interesting outfits there. We didn't even have to comment specifically, we just looked at each other, smiled, and she said, "Slow leak. Dripping everywhere."

I know this is a weakness of mine -- that of verbalizing my observations-- epsecially the not-so-flattering (probably especially to me), ones but dang it! Sometimes it just feels good to do it. Sometimes my lamp's gonna be oily, sometimes it's gonna be dry.