Jud, upon rereading your post...In that context, it might have been only a milder way of saying "fuck off". I wouldn't invite anyone to bite my anything (I might ask them to eat my shit if I was very pissed at them.)

As for such expressions:

- You can call some one a smuck -- did you really mean a "penis" (that's what it means in Yiddish)?

- If you flip someone the bird -- did you really mean you'd like to stick your index finger up their anus?

- If you call someone a scumbag -- did you really mean that they are condom that's full of semen?

- And so forth...These expressions mean so many different things, especially now that the "primtime" TV uses these expressions, I too wonder what they mean in the general exchange of (un)pleasantries too.

As for ESB's suggestion of his wife using the snow shovel or the kids who wanted $40 to shovel the driveway -- I don't know ESB (unless he's someone that we know but who has changes his nom du web), so I'll just assume it as his curmugeonly expression of how he felt rather than necessarily what or how he said actually spoke with someone. Again, who knows in what context he said what words. Kind of like Rumpole of the CSBB :^)

As for Larry-DH, he can dish it out with his keyboard as well as anyone without taking it (too) personally -- I hope. ;^)))))