Dumbass Sayings: “Walking on Eggshells”

Sometimes when you grow up with an alcoholic father you have to be careful not to anger him by waking him up at night. It’s such a universal experience that Parker Brothers actually based a board game off of this situation called “Don’t Wake Daddy.” Of course losing at the board game never involved being thrown into a door so it lost points for realism. When you’re in a session later in life discussing this with your therapist they tell you that you have some issues related to the fact you were “Walking on eggshells” for your whole childhood. I don’t really get this idiom though. Why would there ever be eggshells on your floor? That’s the part I don’t get. If this was a common occurrence that people could relate to then I would understand the saying, but unless you’re living with a slob who just cracks eggs into the pan for breakfast and throws the empty shells on the floor, this doesn’t make sense. I get that eggshells are fragile and they’re easy to crack under your weight, but that’s not relatable enough. Also, why would eggshells be connected to someone getting mad? Now if this phrase was “Walking on bubble wrap” then that might be more appropriate. Bubble wrap is just as fragile as eggshells, when you step on bubble wrap it’ll pop them unless you’re careful, and the noise is much louder than eggshells which would be very annoying to someone and liable to set them off in anger. If you have to explain what a phrase means, it’s not really a good one.

Why not just say "Walking on babies"? Those are WAY more important to not break.