"Like Joseph fleeing Potiphar's wife"

For years now, that phrase pops into my head when trying to communicate the need for urgent evacuation from a non-emergency situation that is, none-the-less, an impending potential crisis. (The need to flee could be mine or someone else's.) I say non-emergency because the phrase sounds too flippant to use in an actual emergency.
In an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard...whoa, got a crossed-message there. Sorry about that! In an actual emergency, it might undermine the sense of urgency needed to respond quickly. It might even stop someone in their tracks (or at least put a quizzical look on their biblically-illiterate face, while they try...) to decipher an increasingly obscure allusion to one chapter in the Book of Genesis. The pertinent passages are here, in case you need a refresher. Or if you have no idea what I'm babbling about.

I said the phrase pops into my head. I haven't actually given it voice very often, probably to avoid being viewed as a total geek. But it's there, just the same. I love the picture it paints in my head. I can actually see Joseph tearing away (perhaps with a spin move ala Barry Sanders or Chuck Foreman) from his master's wife, leaving his empty garment in her hand, and unquenched lust in her heart.
The image it creates is akin to a cartoon character (Roadrunner is a perfect example) departing so quickly (with the accompanying bullet-ricochet sound) that his hat is suspended midair where his head once was, (Roadrunner, of course, didn't wear a hat, but you know what I mean.) fleeing post-haste.

And what on earth, you ask, prompts me to bring this up? (Glad you finally asked!) Well, someone left an April 2002 copy of Catholic Digest in the breakroom at work (no, it's not a Jesuit dentist's waiting room), and I was reading a very well-written article by Bill Dodds titled "The Easy Way to Heaven". A humorous and utterly digestible piece, yet with such striking clarity for such a celestial topic that it's downright revelatory.
Subtitled "A cowardly, thieving plan that will send you straight to paradise", Dodds lists three steps: 1. Be a coward 2. Cheat often 3. Steal if you possibly can.

One of the passages highlighted reads: "Sometimes fighting temptation by fighting temptation is foolish. It isn't that you're overmatched; you have God on your side. But why fight when you can run. Upon reading that line, that image of Joseph fleeing temptation (we at least hope that this righteous servant was fleeing temptation, not just an ugly shrew) popped into my head again. (This time I believe I actually did say it out loud, to noone there.)
If he were about 12 yrs old at the time, it might have looked something like this. Minus the two comrades and a dog.
And the garments.
And the sign would read "No sinning".
And his friends wouldn't be half-naked, either. What was going on back there, anyway? Joseph?!


My kids (and a brother or two) have accused me of thinking too much. Maybe they're right.

Brad