Growing up, when someone was attempting a job that was clearly too big for them, my uncle would say: “You don’t have enough ass in your pants for that!”
What this expression meant of course was that all the strength, gumption or determination in the world were irrelevant, and the task at hand just required more heft. A small child trying to push a heavy crate isn’t getting anywhere with their feet just sliding on the floor instead. This applied to inanimate objects too – a dragster with too much torque and not enough weight was much better at making rubber smoke than forward progress when floored – it just didn’t have enough ass in its pants to stick to the pavement.
Oddly, I’ve never heard this saying used anywhere else, and searching for it online doesn’t turn up any usages (though it might just be drowned out by all the weight loss and fashion clickbait that comes up instead) – maybe it was a very local thing? Maybe he just made it up? Anyway, on discovering its otherwise lack of existence, I figured I’d document it here for posterity. (If anyone has heard this elsewhere, feel free to drop a line below!)
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