Clinging to expectations is a less than ideal way to proceed

Rain and wind and rain and wind and bits of weatherstripping stuck ridiculously to the sills and below them rather than in the grooves the windows fit into here at Duxbury, Mass. so that I have fled the beach house for the free library, where the room is warm, dry and well lit, except for the half a minute when the power was out and all of us here held our collective breaths. On the table beside me I've set Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus and Picturesque Expressions: A Thematic Dictionary, First Edition. Let us begin:

INSIGNIFICANCE:

anise and cumin
Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and
cummin, and have ommitted the
weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy and faith; these
ought ye to have done, and not to
leave the other undone.
-from Jesus' reproach to the Scribes and Pharisees

a drop in the bucket
from the King James version of the Bible:
Behold, the nations are as a drop of
a bucket, and are counted as the
small dust of the balance.

fly in amber.
An unimportant person or incident remembered only
through association with a person or matter of significance.

Mickey Mouse
Cheap or inferior, small, insignificant, worthless;
petty, trivial; simple, easy, childish.

no great shakes
a low roll on a shake of the dice,
a negative appraisal of someone's character
on the basis of a weak handshake,
or a negligible yield resulting
from shaking a barren walnut tree.

one-horse town
The phrase maintains common usage in the United States despite
the fact that horses are no longer the principal means of transportation.

peanut gallery
In many theaters, peanuts and popcorn were sold
only to the people in the least expensive seats,
usually in the rear of the balcony.
Since these seats are traditionally
bought by those of meager means
and, by stereotypic implication, those
with a minimal appreciation of the arts,
comments and criticisms
from the people there carried little, if any, weight.

pebble on the beach
"There's more than one..."
and "You aren't the only...,"
most commonly used in situations
involving a jilted sweetheart.

penny-ante
Compared to the man Bilbo,
63-year-old John Rankin is strictly
penny ante and colorless.
(Negro Digest, August, 1946)

Podunk
the Podunk near Hartford, Connecticut,
or that near Worcester, Massachusetts.

small potatoes
evidently derived from the short-lived satiation
of one who has eaten a small potato.

....

But wait, here's "cock a snook" under INSULT:
A British slang expression for the gesture of putting one's thumb
on one's nose and extending the fingers, equivalent to
thumb one's nose. (not to be confused with setting the fingers
beside the nose, see 'Twas the Night before Christmas.)