I had promised some hijinks to a friend. But then I had none ready. What to do? Why, put on the hijinks apron and whip some up of course!
As you see I am ready to rock! My apron starched and laundered. And there are seven of me. Just to be sure the job gets done.
What I didn’t know, when I promised hijinks to my friend, was that ‘hijinks’ is a drinking game.
High jinks, a somewhat dated expression for fun and pranks, was originally the name of an ancient drinking game played wih dice, and the antics of the players gave birth to the phrase. Sir Walter Scott describes the game in his novel Guy Mannering (1815): “Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain for a time a certain fictitious character or to repeat a certain number of fescennine (obscene) verses in a particular order. If they departed from the character assigned . . . they incurred forfeits, which were compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper, or by paying a small sum toward the reckoning.” (Word and Phrase Origins Third Edition, Robert Hendrickson)
Why, this seems perfect for me! I can throw dice and drink with the best of them! And as there are seven of me (already dressed in aprons and ready to work at this thing, feather duster in hand!) the game is on! I shall have to invent a few more fictitious characters because swallowing a bumper sounds like a bad idea. The only bumpers I know (well, aside from those guys on the subway and I wouldn’t want to swallow any part of them either) are the heavy steel things on cars. Horrible to swallow.
I’m off to gather my chickens and hijinks. See you soon!
I sense a gentle mockery of aprons (“pinnies”, where I came from) here, Karen. Call me eccentric if you will, call me old-fashioned if you must, but I’ll have you know I take my aprons pretty seriously. I have a strange fondness for the look and a great respect for their practicality.
As do I, Janet. As do I!
Well, I think they’re preferable to suspenders.
Yes, I would guess they would be.
The only problem is that the apron denotes someone who is cleaning or cooking (or at a further stretch shoeing horses or hammering metal) whereas the suspenders generally denote some guy on the trading floor. Ha ha
I LOVE aprons—I’d wear a Harvey Girl one every day if I didn’t have to iron the things!! Miss Maggiethecat sent me a very lovely one recently, made by her own two hands, and it’s one of the most exquisite bits of needlework I own—a lovely Asian print on one side, and reversible to a littlefloralprint with red rickrack!!
And I do believe that a “bumper” might be just the thing to keep the party flowing—I remember in a long ago Prairie Home Companion that the august GK himself mentioned the old Norwegian farmers going into the tavern for “a beer and a bump.”
And that would, indeed keep things lively. Until everybody passed out.
Gotta go—the stove just dinged, and rhinotea is ready!!!
I wonder what ailments rhinotea cures, Rachel.
Miss Maggie’s apron sounds stunning!
Why, I thought everybody knew—drinking Rhinotea gives you a one-hundred-minute, fourteen-second window in which you can smell the aromas of the most wonderful things cooking anywhere in the world you choose.
I save mine for occasions which would encompass a wedding in India, a shrimp boil in Louisiana, a big family reunion in an arbor in Tuscany, with platter after platter of glorious Grandma-made food and first wine of the season, and try to angle the last sips around Memphis in May on the bluff, with the scent of barbecue rising to Heaven like holy incense.
To taper off, I spend the final moments at the CrackerJack factory, and the positively last fourteen seconds wherever chocolate truffles are born.
My goodness, Rachel! Now I know why rhinotea is so rare and not often found! Very, very nice.