Sententia (sen-ten’-ti-a): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegem, gnome, maxim, paroemia, and proverb.
Every night, when she tucked in at night Ma said, “He who wrangles clouds gets rained on.” and then sh’d read me “Why Was the Rancher Jolly?” or “Grandma is Stranger Than Truth.”
She repeated this bedtime ritual over, and over, and over. I asked her countless time what what the saying meant and she told me she didn’t know, but a smart man said it. Ok, I thought. When I asked her who the “smart man was,” she shrugged her shoulders. When I asked her why she said it to me every night, I got the shoulder shrug again. I asked her how I could use it to make me wise, she told me, “when you get older, you ‘ll know.” “Thanks Ma,” I said sarcastically. This was my life until I went off to college. It was odd that my mother tucked me in, read me the same bedtime stories over and over, and recited the saying until I was 17. I didn’t care. I had tuned out the entire ritual when I was around 14. I had a counter-saying that I would repeat over and over in my head to drown everything out. It was “Two things are certain: Death and Taxes.” I could get my head around that. I liked it. It wasn’t all hoity-toity. There was no mystery. It was humorous too. I think it preserved my sanity.
When I hopped on the bus to College Town and was waving goodbye out the window, my mother yelled “He who wrangles clouds gets rained on!” It was ironic that it was raining and that I got rained on boarding the bus. I thought it might be some kind omen, but I was unaware of any “cloud wrangling” that I had done. But, the saying had inspired me to study meteorology and become a weatherman. I guess some good had come from Ma’s saying. She had given me a pointer when we got to the bus station. It was collapsible and could be used to point out things on the screen when I reported on the weather. She didn’t know that was done with a mouse in the 21st century. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I didn’t “point” that out to her. Ha ha!
I graduated at the bottom of my class after five years. I had some “issues” that had slowed me down, but that didn’t stop me from getting my dream job at Channel 227 as one of the weather people. I changed my name to Stormy Wrangler and wore very tight pants with my shirt unbuttoned four buttons down, and a golden cloud emitting a lightning bolt around my neck. I was hot.
I began every weather broadcast with Ma’s saying “ He who wrangles clouds gets rained on.” I would bow my head and hold a burning candle. I was very solemn. Then, I would raise my head and smile, blow out the candle and say “Two things are certain: death and weather. Let’s get started with the snow—whoops I meant show.” Then I would say something like, “It looks like we’re not going to die, but there’s a cold front headed to our front doors from Canada.”
Now I have a fan base of 2,000,000 viewers. It all reminds me of a saying attributed to the Greek philosopher Skeptikus Pathetikus: “You never know.”
The Daily Trope 