Time changes things. Or at least, the lack of time changes things by rendering them trite, banal.

Ever notice when someone utters something while taking off from a red light, or on the way out the door? In my case, in the rush,  I sometimes fail to understand and respond with something all-purpose, like “You’ve got it” or “That’s correct” or “I see what you mean” or “Yes, I agree” or “Good point.”

We can sometimes get away with these pat, unrehearsed replies, but what if the person who addressed us said, “I’m a little short. Can you lend me a hundred till payday?” What if the person were to have uttered, “All your former students call you ‘Blackboard Breath’”? Would one of the pedestrian, clichéd answers come to mind when nothing profound will surface for a question like “May I borrow your car?”

I believe a lot of us spend time revising the past, especially when it comes to wishing we’d had the wherewithal to issue the perfect squelch. I’m sure many of us replay the exchange in our minds until we have ourselves uttering an excellent rejoinder and maybe even convincing ourselves that we actually said it at the time. The super rejoinder that we employed revisionist history to produce often surfaces when one retells the event.

Often I try desperately to come up with a rejoinder for all time, something so brilliant that the wittiest of people would remember it. Instead, a trite, stale reply comes out. We like to blame the lack of time for our clichédom. When I spoke an overused expression (or else put it in print), my friend, Optic contributing writer Lupita Gonzales, accused me of using a caliche. Now, any norteño knows that caliche is something used for road surfaces. A cliché, as every English teacher knows, if what comes out of an exchange when someone simply doesn’t have the time or the talent to be profound.

Clichés often occur when people hear expressions without really knowing all the elements. The metaphor, a figure of speech that makes an impossible comparison (He was a lion in the fight), makes a statement that can’t be true. So, a man isn’t a lion, nor is a lion a man). Metaphors get mixed a great deal.

At a recent graduation, a member of the audience whispered something about the commencement speaker who regaled the crowd with tales of all of his accomplishments, ending with, “If you try really hard, you can be just like me!”

The member of the audience who made a justified comment, mixed a metaphor by saying, “He’s just buttering his own nest.” So we have a mixture of “buttering someone up” and “feathering someone’s nest.” Through overuse, metaphors and other expressions we’ve heard often constitute the caliches we find so common.

So here’s an exercise in mixing metaphors. Your job is to interpret what you believe the expression means and, if possible, identify the two or more expressions that became blended in the confused locution. The expressions will be imbedded in the following text. Please email your responses.

Mixed metaphors are likely to come up during post-election parties. Here’s a mythical gathering that contains a few:

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A party guest says, “Those darned Democrats will be in power until the cows come home to roost.” The host replies, “So what you really mean is that when the rubber meets the road, you won’t bite the bullet; you just want to punt.”

Another man joins in: “Here’s something to put in your pipe and chew over: Loose lips spoil the broth. When the GOP takes over, you’ll be eating humble crow. I guess that shoots the wind out of your saddle.”

Trying to mollify her host-husband, the wife chimes in: “Why don’t you men make up? Your opinions are diabolically opposed. And besides, one should not bite the hand that rocks the cradle.” To which the host concludes, “I’ve been burning the midnight oil at both ends. I’m tired and I want to bury the sack.”

But one of the guests, a late arriver, who missed out on the hors d’oeuvres, insults the host with, “I wouldn’t eat that food with a 10-foot pole.” And the hostess replies with, “But you might, if you were at a wiener roast.”

We have allusions to bovines, automobiles, weapons, football, sleep, hatchets, smoking and chewing, broth and crow consumption and being tall in the saddle. But no meeting of minds.

We have nothing settled. We come to realize that some people who attend parties after elections are one brick short of the whole nine yards. We also discover that a rolling stone is worth two in the bush and that the early bird gathers no moss, or as we like to say in New Mexico, no más.

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While it is true that the early bird gets the worm, it seems unfair that the second mouse gets the cheese.