LOL! That was one of my father’s favorite sayin’s, usually applied to a car — or to a warm afternoon. And as we lived out in Saudi Arabia, on the arid and fricaseeing shores of the Persian gulf, it was often a particularly germane folk phrase.
He grew up in Texas, though in fact he had been born and partly raised in the deep, DEEP South. So I reckon it’s within reason to guess that turn of phrase could have come out of the South rather than Texas.
Hm. Apparently there’s a version, “hotter than a two-dollar pistol,” that refers to a car — especially a Corvette. But the folk phrase seems to have been born in the Deep South or the Wild West.
Welp, hereabouts the three-dollar cookstove has been simmering away all day long. The sky is overcast and hotter than a by-gawd. 😀
Seriously: for an Arizonan, a cloudy day that’s also HOT signifies a visit to Hell. And that’s just what we have this afternoon: Middling-low cumulus clouds floating in hot, almost damp air. I’d say it was strictly for the birds, but just now the birds have disappeared, presumably taking cover under any shade they can find. Just now, Wunderground tells us the afternoon’s temperature is 101 degrees, with a 24% of rain.
Hm. Could be, could be… We shall see, in due course.