You know what phrase has always irritated me? "You couldn't make it up."
It doesn't say much for a person's creativity if he or she thinks that a night of heavy drinking, for example, topped off by having to spend an evening in A&E because somebody drunkenly climbed and fell from a tree is outside the realm of imagination. Have these people not read fiction? How are drunken hijinks or sporting moments (to use another common example) more absurd than the concept of Animal Farm?
This phrase seems to me like it could be grouped with "humans only use 10% of their brains", among others, in that it only applies to people who think it's true.
