Up the Creek (A Familiar Argument)

We’ve all heard the phrase “up shit creek without a paddle.” And to be clear, the phrase doesn’t refer to a creek named “Shit,” but a flowing stream of shit, instead. This is a pretty important distinction to make, as I will discuss. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get people to come to my point of view on this topic. So what do you do when no one agrees with your argument? Talk louder! No… not really. Air it on the Internet to see if a new audience will support you.

The crux of the argument is that if you remove the adjective “shit” from the phrase, then it loses all meaning. If you are up shit creek without a paddle, then you are truly screwed. However, if you are a the creek without a paddle, you have options!

If I’m floating along in a creek filled with water, I just may bend over the side and paddle with my hand. At least paddle to get me to the shore if I don’t want to fight the current. So my hand gets a little wet. Big deal! Or if things are a bit direr, I might just hop on out of the boat and swim to shore. A bit of water is not stopping me from saving myself. Even Garfield swam to shore when he was stuck on the haunted island in his Halloween special (ok… so Odie had to save him and swim him to shore, but he tried).

So, the water… not such a big deal. And don’t tell me that it could have alligators or piranhas or anything like that in it. The phrase doesn’t mention them, so they aren’t there. It’s not “up alligator creek without a paddle.”

On the other hand, I have seen being covered in shit played for comedy (Slumdog Millionaire) and for shock (Salo, which does far more than cover people in shit), and let me tell you, neither seems fun. In fact, there is just about nothing that will get me to touch the flowing river of feces, let alone get in it to try to save myself. And I’d rather not think about what the smell would be like. I can picture myself laying on the bottom of the boat until I whither away to nothing rather than come face-to-face with that wretched river.

And that’s my point. On the one hand, you have a minor inconvenience that may get you a little wet. Who hasn’t been caught in the rain without an umbrella? It’s something that you can and have dealt with. On the other hand, you have a debilitating problem that will take a lot of brainpower and gumption to solve. The next time someone tell you that you’ll be “up the creek...,” you just tell them, “thanks for the warning, but I could use a nice swim” and walk away knowing that trouble is not in your future.