At first glance you’d think today’s post belongs in our ‘Weekend Reflection’ series, as the original phrase “When life gives you lemons make lemonade” is about coping with adversity. Apparently the phrase was first used in a 1915 obituary and has since been quoted often in various forms.
Today though we’re going to look at variations on the phrase, starting with the one that our family has liked,
“When life gives you lemons…..
make gin and tonic!”
In 2012, we were travelling from Palmerston North to Wellington for Noah to have surgery. We’d had a fraught few months as he’d had a bowel perforation, needing an emergency ileostomy and after frequent prolapses it was time for an ileostomy reversal. On our way we stopped at a little village called Shannon as his stoma had prolapsed again and while Paul dealt with the medical stuff, I looked round a gift shop and found a plaque with this phrase on. I kept reading it during our 10 day hospital stay and we were able to pass it on to someone else who appreciated it two years later, when Paul’s sister discovered she had breast cancer.
I’ve so enjoyed searching other variations on “When life gives you lemons”. Here are those I like most
1. Cave Johnson rant
In the video game Portal 2, there is a character, Cave Johnson, who rages about lemons, after his early optimism fails him. He has a deadly disease caused by contact with moon rocks: He expected researchers to invent a vaccine to save him, but when they don’t he says,
“When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”
2. Grammar
“When life give you lemons, the figure of speech is called personification.”
3. Pay Back
“When life gives you lemons, give life a paper cut and squeeze lemon juice in the wound.”
4. Anagram
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