What exactly is IN the bush, you ask?

"One in the hand is worth two in the bush..."

I know we've all heard this. I, for one, don't know if I believe it.


I get the general concept. One sure thing is worth two unknown things. Simple, right? (This is where you'd generally hear the game show-like buzzer that indicates just how wrong you are...but this is the Internet folks, not television. This isn't a moving picture show. So deal with it).

I have some things to say about this one in the hand concept.

First off, if we're discussing birds (which you may not be, but stick with me here) which is what the actual phrase DOES discuss... I don't know if having one in your hand is that great.

For starters, they poop. This doesn't seem very sanitary to me. Why would I want a pooping bird in my hand? I'd rather let the two in the bush do their business outside and then we'll worry about getting them inside. Into a cage. Lined with paper. Certainly not my hand.

Birds have beaks. They can pinch you with them. That one in your hand gets angry (like you don't play angry birds, don't try to deny it! You know about Angry Birds) and you might just lose one of your fingers. The two in the bush probably aren't going to randomnly attack my hand. Unless it's like that movie The Birds. Let's not go there, though. Because I wake up to the sound of a woodpecker outside that I can hear but not see. So I don't even want to think about that.

Let's move away from the birds and just think of money.

I have a dollar in my hand. But I see two more sitting in the bush. Dude, I got cheated. Why wouldn't I pick up all three of them and run? And why am I running...it is, after all, just three bucks. No one is going to chase me for three dollars. And I can't even afford a Starbucks with that. Or a gallon of gas. I guess that's why I'm running, instead of driving.

Easter is coming up...

Imagine a 6 year old you, at a family Easter egg hunt. You find an egg. You run up to your mother, beaming from ear to ear about your Easter egg, holding it up, laughing. She thinks you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, so she is proud of you. While you do your victory dance (which sort of looks like the "I have to go potty" dance) your older cousin flies by you, pushing you out of the way, and throws himself at the nearest bush. When he crawls out, hands held high, an Easter egg in both, victoriously ... do you hear him calling you a "sucka" under his breath? Because, seriously, he is. Two in the bush beat one in the hand ... yet again!


Moral of the story? It isn't that simple. Two in the bush sometimes beat one in the hand. Or was the moral that birds poop? Or that you're a "sucka"? You decide.