Crecerle los enanos

when it rains, it pours; **when it rains, it pours**; **to go from bad to worse**; **everything that can go wrong does go wrong**; **to have one problem after another**; **to be plagued by setbacks**

Crecerle los enanos means to have one problem after another, for everything to go wrong, for bad luck to keep piling up, or for a difficult situation to become even worse.

It expresses the idea that new problems appear before the previous ones have been solved.

• one setback follows another
• unexpected complications keep appearing
• everything seems to go wrong at once
• a difficult situation becomes increasingly unmanageable
• someone feels overwhelmed by continuous bad luck

The expression is generally believed to come from the world of travelling circuses.

The humorous image imagines a circus owner whose dwarf performers suddenly begin to grow, ruining the very attraction for which they were hired.

Whether historically accurate or not, the absurdity of the image perfectly conveys the feeling that even the things one assumes to be stable suddenly become problems.

Although the expression originated in a historical context where circuses featured people with dwarfism, modern speakers use it purely as a figurative idiom.

It is no longer associated with real circus performers but simply describes a succession of unexpected setbacks.

Spanish has several expressions describing a series of unfortunate events:

• Crecerle los enanos → to have one problem after another.
• Cuando llueve, diluvia → when it rains, it pours.
• Ir de mal en peor → to go from bad to worse.
• Torcerse las cosas → for things to take a turn for the worse.

Among them, crecerle los enanos is one of the most vivid because it humorously imagines a situation in which even the most unexpected and impossible thing becomes another problem to deal with.

Do not translate the expression literally.

English speakers would never say:

His dwarfs are growing.

Instead, use expressions such as:

• When it rains, it pours.
• Things are going from bad to worse.
• He keeps running into one problem after another.
• Everything that can go wrong is going wrong.

Choose the translation according to whether the emphasis is on bad luck or accumulating problems.