L is for Louse

Back in my day, one of the worst things to call someone on the playground was a louse. To kids, there is a stigma attached to having lice. A stigma, that to this day has not been broken. Dirty kids, poor kids, kids that were different always had a better chance of being infested than you did.

Until the day, you actually came home, digging and scratching in your hair and suddenly, you were ashamed.

I've had lice twice in my life. Once as a child and I don't really remember much about it except I insisted on looking at one through a magnifying glass. And once a few years ago when the girls and I bought some beach hats. Ashleigh noticed them first on her head and I asked her if there was a notice from her school - because the schools will do that - and sure enough, there wasn't. We racked our brains trying to figure out where she could have picked them up, when Cyra came to me complaining that her head was itchy. 

We traced the outbreak to the hats and by then, I was starting to itch.

Everyone and everything got treated: all the stuffed animals, bedding, clothes. I put chemicals on the carpet, sprayed so much Rid everywhere, I might as well have called pest control.

Just writing about it makes my head itch!!

Louse has been around for ages as the singular name for lice. As a slang though, it can be traced to the early 1900s where it was a noun used to describe a mean person. Today, I think we use it to mean a jerk or a low-life.

Example: Larry lurked low in the lilacs lying in wait for Lenny the Louse to leave Leona's love nest. Larry laughed thinking about how he was going to lob a loogie at Lenny.

This post has been brought to you by the Letter L and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 744. Check out more A to Z blogs here!

K is for Kibosh and Kosher

I have discovered something about my new work schedule: Thursdays are rough. The work itself isn’t difficult, but my hours? Those are killers. I work a third shift on Wednesday, get home around 7:20 am Thursday morning and have to be back at work by 3pm. This is called the turn around shift and it’s working me over something fierce.

I don’t sleep well during the day when I work graveyard. The phone rings and I have to get it because what if it’s the girls calling? The dog barks and I need to figure out why since she only really barks if a stranger approaches the house. The amount of caffeine I consume during the night works it way out of my system while I’m trying to sleep and I end up getting up two and three times to use the bathroom. The eastern sunlight cascades through my window and though I have blinds, it probably wouldn’t hurt to throw up some light blocking curtains.

So, Thursdays? Yeah. They’ve got it out for me. Something about the T days, I guess, because Tuesday always throws me too.

That said, I haven’t got a story for today’s words. And I feel like a complete heel because of it. Not because I’m disappointing my admiring fans (you guys are admiring, right?) but because I really wanted to have a story to share and I just…can’t today.

It’s 10 am Friday as I’m writing this and I’m ready for a nap. I want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers up over my head.

Jeesh. I’m surely pitiful! But I’m gonna put the kibosh on that right now! That kosher with you guys?

Kibosh is a noun from the 1940s meaning to put a stop to something and kosher an adjective from the 1920s meaning fair (or a term that describes food prepared according to Jewish dietary law found in the Torah). 

Example: Kelly was keen to kibosh Kevin’s kidney knickknack collection. But Kevin’s counselor claimed that the whole thing was kosher.   

This post has been brought to you by the Letter K and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 1418. Check out more A to Z blogs here! 

J is for Jalopy

This is the first word on my list so far that I have no specific memories for nor can I recall ever using it. Which is a travesty because we’ve all owned a jalopy.

My jalopy was an old Chevy Celebrity station wagon that my sister bought off of a co-worker for me. Well, I say she bought it for me, but it is just as likely that she bought it so that we could have an extra car - specifically so that I’d stop asking to borrow the car. It was love at first sight. I named him Rembrandt and had visions of giving him a paint job akin to the one that Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem gave Fozzie’s Studebaker.

Rembrandt saw my through my first summer after graduation and took me on my first camping trip. My first real make-out session happened in the back underneath a beautiful starry sky on my favorite back road.

I don’t remember the cause of Rembrandt’s death, but by the autumn of 95, he’d had enough and was put out to pasture.

Jalopy is a noun from the 1920s that means a beat up old car.

Example: Jack jumped into the jeep and jolted in surprise. “This jalopy just jabbed me in the Johnson!”

This post has been brought to you by the Letter J and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 1166. Check out more A to Z blogs here!

I is for Itchy Feet

I’ve written about my itchy feet before. And no, I do not have a rash or a fungus. What I have is an innate desire to travel and see the world. If I could, I’d buy an RV, a boat, a plane and I would never stay in one spot for too long.

Maybe it’s a habit formed from a childhood of relocation. We weren’t a military family yet it seemed every few years or so we’d pack and go. Granted, for the most part all the moves were in the same town, but when I finally moved out on my own I continued the tradition. Every three years we’d rent a truck and take off to the next house.

The longest we stayed in one place was six years and by the end of that time my feet were so itchy I could barely stand still! One of my favorite lines from any song goes” It’s time to move on, it’s time to get going, cause under my feet, the grass is growing.” This Tom Petty song captures exactly how I feel.

I like having a place to call my own, don’t get me wrong, but I’d be just as happy to call an RV or a boat home as I would a house.

Itchy Feet is an idiom/slang term used to express a strong desire to move or travel.

Example: Ivan and Ivanna’s interest in islands intrigued them and invoked intense itchy feet.

This post has been brought to you by the Letter I and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 492. Check out more A to Z blogs here!

H is for Heebie Jeebie

When we first moved into our house we discovered that living in the country had some distinct advantages and some creepy disadvantages. I grew up in the country so bugs and creepy-crawlies in the house was nothing to me. But after spending so many years living in homes that had monthly pest service, I found that I had forgotten my country roots.

One night shortly after we moved in, I was curled up next to Scott, softly snoring* when I felt a tickle scuttle across my forehead and down my cheek. I reached up to scratch at the offending tickle and came away with a large spider (I am trying to curb my tendency for hyperbole otherwise I’d say something like “ginormous” or “monstrous”). I flung it and myself out of bed screeching with all the power of 100 banshees.

Scott rolled to his feet and clicked the light on in one smooth motion (proving that at least in an emergency his dexterity isn’t all that bad) and looked around wild-eyed for the serial killer that was clearly invading the house.

“Spider!!” I screamed pointing at the floor my body convulsed into a fit of shakes. “It crawled. Across. My. Face. Kill it!”

Now let me be clear, Friends, I am no more afraid of spiders than I am of cats. That is to say, I’m not at all afraid of them. However, I certainly do not want them crawling across me while I sleep. I’m more than happy to provide shelter to a spider; they eat mosquitoes and flies and therefore will typically leave them alone. And it isn’t like I live in Australia where every creepy crawly is out to get you. My spiders, usually, aren’t venomous – just big, hairy common brown crevice spiders (Mom: don’t click that link).

I had major Heebie-Jeebies that night trying to fall back asleep.

Heebie-Jeebie is noun used in the from the 1920s used to indicate nervousness although today I think we tend to mean it more as a case of the creeps or getting skived out.

Example: Heather had the heebie-jeebies when she heard a horrendous hungry howl and hurried home to hide.

*ha! Softly snoring! Does anyone actually snore softly?

This post has been brought to you by the Letter H and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 965. Check out more A to Z blogs here!

G is for Grody and Gag Me

Like, totally, I’m like a child of the 80s, fer sure.

I grew up with, like, Cabbage Patch Kids, Barbie and the Rockers, and a whole slew of bitchen sit-coms, in, like, the decade of the Valley Girl! It was a time of Moon Unit Zappa (she’s fer sure super super nice), Cyndi Lauper, and arcades. The early days of the Brat Pack. Leg warmers, head bands, Swatch watches!

It was, like, fer sure, totally tubular!

The 80s also affected our language and slang. Grody to the Max and Gag Me with a Spoon were common phrases at school.

Let me be clear, I was not a Valley Girl. Not even close. I grew up in upstate New York as far from the Valley as I could be, but we, my friends and I, loved mimicking the accent, that shrill squeal, and the bratty air-head attitude that we saw on TV and in movies. We twirled our hair and tossed our heads, hip cocked out to the side.

Like, fer sure.

Totally.

It was done in fun, a blatant parody of a group of people who may or may not have been depicted accurately. 

Both Grody to the Max and Gag Me with a Spoon mean something that is disgusting and are both from the 1980s. Although grody by itself was used in the 1970s, I prefer the 1980s version.

Example: Gavin gave Gabby a growler of Guinness that gushed out engulfing Gabby in goo. “Grody to the max!” Gabby gasped emphatically while Gwen glared at Gavin, “Gag me with a spoon!”

 This post has been brought to you by the Letter F and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 303. Check out more A to Z blogs here!

F is for Fink and Floozy

This is the first of at least four posts where I couldn’t decide on a word so I took two! I can do things like that because I’m awesome and also, occasionally indecisive. It’s okay. It’s endearing.

Fink is a noun from the 1950s used to describe a tattle tale. Fink was possible one of the worst things to be called in elementary school.

Floozy is a noun from the 1910s that describes a loose woman. Not a prostitute mind you, just easy.

Man that felt a little awkward to write.

I’m not sure when I first heard floozy but fink was something I remember from elementary school. Cries of “You fink,” could be heard around the playground every once in a while and when it was shouted out, you knew that there was going to be trouble. Nowadays, people use the word “snitch” or “rat” to describe a tattle tale. And in middle school anyway no one wants to be the fink. There is an unspoken rule amongst the teenagers - you don’t tell on people. End of story.

Ashleigh is fond of using floozy to describe women she thinks dress a little too provocative or act too suggestive. Mostly I hear her apply this term to actresses and models. I’ve never heard her use it in reference to a person she knows. Ashleigh is very modest in dress and behavior and, honestly, is a bit old fashioned (like me). And I’m okay with it.

Example: Fancy that fink, Fred, Frenching Florence from the fifth floor! Frankly, she’s a floozy; fortunately, Fabio fired them both!

This post has been brought to you by the Letter F and the fine folks at Blogging A to Z. And by the number 44. Check out more A to Z blogs here!