«كَانِتْ مِرْتَاحَهْ جَابِتْ لَهَا حَاحَهْ»

The saying pokes fun at someone who was living at ease and then, by her own doing, took on something that keeps her occupied and wears her down. Ḥāḥa names the cries of animals such as goats, chickens, or geese, so the new trouble is pictured as noise she invited into a quiet life.

Its force comes from the contrast between the calm she once enjoyed and the commotion she now lives with, and from the fact that nobody forced it on her. The disturbance is of her own making, which is what gives the remark its teasing edge.

Use it, usually wryly or teasingly, about someone, by default a woman given the feminine grammar, who was comfortable and then took on something, such as a new obligation or purchase, that now keeps her busy and worn out.