Don't Get It Wet or Tom
Had a good time with Marcus & Tammy last night. I watched Marcus play "The Force Unleashed", an incredible Star Wars video game for the Playstation 3 (I should write a blog entry just about that game!). The three of us went for a walk, got some vittles, and then watched "Vexille", a very cool 3D Japanese animation movie.
As I was about to leave, Marcus noticed something quite humorous on the plastic DVD case from the movie rental company. Among other things, the printed instructions say "Never clean the bar code area or get it wet or tom during the cleaning process". I cannot even believe he noticed this, and more astonishing, apparently no one who publishes on the web has noticed it yet either (we did a Google search immediately, and as of this moment, no one has mentioned it). We are talking a major movie rental establishment here! There may well be millions of these cases printed in error. I guess most people just don't care. I'm sure someone else has noticed it.
Neither one of us would have cared either, had the spelling error been something simple and recognizable - a standard typo. This one is different. We both found it hilarious because neither of us, after several minutes of thought, have any idea whatsoever what it should or was trying to say! It would be interesting to see what "tom" means, besides some guy's name! I do recall noticing that recently the cases changed format... perhaps it was because the rental place noticed the mistake too. Hopefully no one got fired over such a silly thing! :)
At any rate, Marcus gave me a great salutation as I was walking out the door to leave, past midnight it was, me riding my bike home (context means everything for neology). He said, "Don't get it wet or tom." So is coined a new expression. "Don't get it wet or tom" is a salutation expressed when people part ways. I guess the closest equivalent would be, "Don't get wet", a common thing to say when parting, and it's raining outside. But rain isn't absolutely necessary for "don't get it wet or tom" to be applied. After all, it wasn't raining last night.
So, I'm not sure if my other expression spreading attempt worked out... speaking of that, go check it out right now! It's Wu Shu Sunday, the coolest day of all! Press F5 or "refresh" your browser to see all the image variations :) Hopefully "don't get it wet or tom" will get a little more exposure, since the source of it has much wider circulation. If it does, credit my friend Marcus for coining it and discovering it. If this makes it into some expression or phrase source history book, let it be known that here is where it started. October 26, 2008 in Beaverton, Oregon.
Don't get it wet or tom, and DaColas to all!
