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Walking into Trouble
You can kind of tell, can't you, when you put your foot right in it, and you know you're going to spend the next few hours, at the very least if you're lucky, digging right on back out off that hole, to mix metaphors. Or not mix metaphors if you'd always imagined the phrase 'put your foot right in it' involving putting your foot in a hole. Personally, I never imagine it that way, I see the putting your foot in it either being an allusion to the foot in mouth thing or a reference to a pile of something unsavoury and your foot being firmly, yet vaguely enough, planted in it so as not to offend those of you with delicate sensibilities and to enable those of you with sensibilities you'd like to offend full licence and ability to do so. But some people may prefer to think of putting their foot in a hole. So there you go.
My visualisation when it comes to digging oneself out of a hole is probably largely the same as everyone else's, as you're not bound to have a whole lot of variation on the theme of being stuck in a hole and digging yourself out out there. The only major difference, I suppose, would be which way you find yourself digging attempting to get out of the hole. And, given the dualistic nature of the visualisation (no one could be expected to argue a convincing case for digging sideways out of a hole, unless it happened to be alongside a tunnel or something, and you were digging sideways into the tunnel to get out, and while that may seem like a convincing argument, I would tend to think that's cheating, in some way, as you can't presuppose a tunnel being right next to the hole you've gotten yourself in, how often does that happen, honestly?), you might be inclined to draw a parallel with the age-old glass of water perception.
In that it's half-full or half-empty. This saying, of course, refers to the case in which you happen upon a glass of water that's got some sort of liquid in it up to (or down to) about the halfway mark, and doesn't take into account people picking up the wrong glass and drinking a bit of it before realising their mistake, putting the glass back down, hoping the person whose glass it really was didn't notice them taking a large gulp out of their water or other type of beverage. This can be an innocent mistake, or it can be, so I'm led to suspect, a malicious act. Sipping from someone else's tea is slightly different, due to the non-clear nature, generally, of the cup and the inability to tell just how much is left, and if it's got a skin of oily stuff along the top you're inclined to be pessimistic about the tea regardless of how much is left or not. Which is another kettle of fish. Of a sort, and again metaphorically.
So you may, if you were so inclined and of the persuasion (psychological, perhaps), draw a parallel between the type of people who refer to the infamous glass as half-full or half-empty (with or without hyphens, which may be yet another further study you might like to make) and those people who visualise themselves digging themselves out of a hole up or down. It would be my belief that the people picturing the digging being done downwards might be the more pessimistic ones, or at the very least the same sort of ones that attempted to dig to China when they were kids (or attempted to dig to California, for some ungodly reason, if they happened to live in China already and didn't fancy digging to exactly the same place).
This is all rampant speculation, however, and all very well and good if you're trying to divert someone from either watching you for further stupid things like the very stupid thing you've just said or perhaps eradicating the stupid thing said by inundating them with loads of largely inoffensive rubbish about glasses of water and holes.
Like a watched pot glazing over.
disclaimer:
This has all been brought to you by lots and lots of sugar.
Loads.
C'mon you boys in green! (We're looking for 12-0, at the least... in with a shout.)
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Yer Weekly Horoscopes. Okay so then.