The Romans had an expression for it . . . “it” being a foul, snot-flinging, food-showing, ass-kicking mood that envelops a person for no reason. The expression was In lectulo surgens sinistram: He got up on the wrong side of the bed. (When Roman women were in a foul mood, it was assumed they were in rag, an expression that doesn’t need translating.)
In Roman times the wrong side of the bed was the left side. Indeed, left was considered the wrong side of everything in those times. Today we’re ambidextrous. Either side of the bed could be the wrong side because it’s a goddamn metaphor, see? Nevertheless, because we are a pattern-and-solution-seeking tribe who can’t seem to resist unpacking metaphors, people are inspired to write shit with titles like “What to do when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Ignore Freud for a start.”
Sod Freud and sod the feckin’ eejit who wrote this overstrung and overworked drivel in the Irish Times.
Better advice is on offer in the song “Wrong Side of the Bed.” To wit, “The sun got drunk, somebody shut the door/I’m going back to sleep until I don’t know when/Well I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
The best advice of all, which is the case in most cases, is to game the expression by using it as an excuse for anything you do that others find annoying, offensive, and/or disgusting.
Ran over your neighbor’s kid while backing out of your driveway at twenty miles per hour? “Woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
Coughed up a two-ounce loogie and spat it on the sidewalk, where it bounced twice? “Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed.”
Shot up half of Las Vegas from your hotel room window? “WUWSB.”
You get the idea. If you can do it, you can spin your way out of it. Pars in amicis meis epularer.
