Er drayt sich arum vie a forts in roosl.

If there’s one thing we Jews are good at, it’s painting a picture ... and then kvetching about the shlemiel who hung the thing crooked! While garlicky pickles have been known to incite some gastrointestinal acoustics, dill—fun fact!—is considered a digestive aid. Hence the prominent role it plays in our famous chicken soup a.k.a. Jewish Penicillin, our go-to cure-all).

Regardless, many guilty tooters point to the pickle (if not the dog) to explain away even the deadliest SBDs, but, even if the tooter is to be taken at their word, it’s unlikely that said flatulence would find itself back at the source; in this case, the pickle barrel. And that, my friends, is the genius of this expression.

Oh sure, it has its “counterparts,” such as, “Lost as a fart in a windstorm.” But, the validity of this expression can easily be called into question. What’s to say that this fart—in essence mere wind itself—doesn’t feel perfectly at home in the midst of its brethren? Yes, OK, I realize the intention is to imagine that, once in the windstorm, the fart becomes indiscernible from the other winds, but regardless! I still maintain this inferior version is dangerously ambiguous. Whereas a fart finding itself in a pickle-barrel leaves no doubt in one’s mind that this particular stinker has found itself wildly off-course.

Appropriate usage?

Over dinner, Walter asked his husband Aaron how dress rehearsal went for this year’s senior center production of Fiddler on the Roof. Aaron shook his head ...

Aaron: “Oy! Frayg nisht!”

Walter: “What do you mean, ‘don’t ask’? What happened? Did that yenta Gloria Bomberg finally realize she can’t sing a note and quit the show?“

Aaron: “Oyf mir gezogt gevorn! No, Murray had to drive Ethel to the chiropodist so he missed rehearsal, and his understudy, Frank Menzer, took his place.”

Walter: “That putz? Is it safe to assume he can’t find his way around a stage either?”

Aaron: “Ha! You got it, my love! He wanders around like a fart in a pickle barrel!”

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