I have a saying that I tell my husband pretty frequently and I am curious if I picked this up somewhere subconsciously or if I actually came up with it on my own (which would really surprise me because I'm not creative at all). I say, "Maids' house is the dirtiest". In a sense this would mean that a maid spends all day cleaning and therefore the last thing she would want to do when she gets to her own personal space is clean, but I use it to imply that a persons' profession is the last thing they want to do once they get home (i.e. the last thing a plumber wants to do is go home and have to fix the leaky kitchen faucet, the last thing a car repairsman wants to do when he gets home from work is give the car an oil change, etc). My husband fixes computers and when mine messes up it takes weeks to get him to come around to fixing it so I always say, "Maids' house is the dirtiest". Is this something that's been around a while or am I more creative than I give myself credit for? Thanks for you help!
I haven't heard that particular phrase, but I liken it to "a mailman who takes a walk on his day off." Same idea.
I have not read it myself because my dial-up download is slow, but a similar sentiment, "cobbler's children are the worst shod", is reported to be old in this 1881 document.
Emmett
Yeah, the cobbler's children is what immediately occurred to me when I saw the subject line of this thread. And while I can't provide a citation, I have the impression that saying goes back all the way to Shakespeare's time and before.