on the fly

Venus fly-trap
Sometimes it is rather useful for a family to have words and sayings that have nothing to do with their actual meanings.

Several weeks ago while helping my 11 year old son get ready for school, I noticed his fly was down. For some reason I said "Venus flytrap", which of course he thought was odd, I told him "your fly is down". "oh" and he zipped it up. He told me that as a metaphor venus flytrap just has nothing to do with someone's fly being down, and thus is stupid. I said they both have the word fly in them, and flytraps make me think of zippers.
So anyway since that morning, when out and about at grocery store, et. cetera, I have had cause to softly say to my son "Venus flytrap". It always annoys him, he rolls his eyes, telling me again how it is not a good metaphor, or analogy, or anything, while he zipps up his pants. This morning, while I was dropping my son off at school, as he stood getting his binder out of the car, I saw silver, his fly was down. As other kids also getting dropped off for school were around I merely said "Don't forget to make sure the thing is up". "What?" He looked at me like I was crazy. "Venus flytrap" I said clearly and loud enough to carry. "Ooohh" he smiled and zipped up his fly. So silly saying or not, we were both pleased to have a code word for such a predicament.

(photo from Botany.org)