My Brain Defrag Post!

They say a brain is like a computer … or is a computer like a brain? Either way, they are alike. So this morning when I walked into the kitchen and couldn’t remember what the hell I had gone in there for I decided it must be time to defrag! You know when your computer gets bogged down with files you don’t use any more and it starts to run slow? You delete files you no longer need and then let the computer “reorganize” itself. I decided it was time to do that with the old noggin.

I know a lot of stuff, admittedly, most is useless information. And although the useless stuff is interesting to throw out at parties I believe it’s taking up space needed for useful information; like what the hell I went in the kitchen for this morning. So in my infinite wisdom I decided if I wrote down some useless information, stored it on the information super highway, I wouldn’t need to remember it any more. I could let it go and free up some memory space. Not sure it will work, but what the hell!

I have always been a fan of “phrase origins”; you know, why we say the things we say. For instance, way back in the day they had a tendency to bury people who were still alive. Now I can only assume it was by accident, but it was a common occurrence. So what they used to do was run a string down to the body in the grave. Above ground that string was then attached to a bell. If the “dead” person woke up they would simply pull the string, which would ring the bell and let everyone know they were still alive and needed to be dug up. These people became known as “Dead ringers”. It was also someone’s job to sit in the cemetery all night listening for the bells … it was called the “graveyard shift”.

When I was younger I worked as a tour guide at the House of Seven Gables in Salem, MA. It honestly was one of the best summer jobs I ever had. I even played Nathaniel Hawthorne during the Haunted Happenings for Halloween. Back then I had to put powder in my hair to make it look gray … now? Not so much, it’s all natural!

Working at the Gables I got to meet a lot of interesting people and also got to learn a lot of interesting “phrase origins”. I have been holding onto this information far too long and I think I need the space in my brain, so it’s time to write them down and let them go … careful, you may learn something here!

Back in the Hawthorne days beds had ropes that held the mattress up. These ropes would become loose over time and you needed to tighten them. You would then use what they called a bed key to tighten the ropes... that is why we “Sleep tight”. Also, people would gather leaves, grass clippings and other yard waste materials to make their mattresses. Of course these all had bugs in them as well, so it’s best to advise someone to “Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite”.

Have you ever referred to something or someone as being “dead as a door nail”? You can thank the rich people from the 1800’s! Nails were very expensive back then so if someone wanted to show how wealthy they were they would pound nails into their front doors. The more nails, the more money they had. Of course poor people couldn’t afford nails so at night they would go around to all the rich people’s homes and steal the nails from the front doors. To prevent this from happening, the rich people would pound the nail half way in and then bend it over into the surface of the door. Now the nail was virtually useless … and considered DEAD.

Oh, and speaking of poor people … when nature called they had to run out to the outhouse, even in the middle of January. Rich people could afford to have a “chamber pot” that was stored under the bed. When nature called for them they simply slid it out, answered nature’s call, and slid it back under the bed until morning. Poor people would have to face the elements and trek to the outhouse because they couldn’t afford “a pot to piss in”. Rich people could also afford to put a second floor on their homes, and that’s where the bedrooms were. So in the morning the youngest child or servant whose job it was to empty the pot, would simply open the window and dump the contents out the window. Poor people couldn’t afford that so they didn’t have “a pot to piss in OR a window to throw it out”. I’m not 100% on this one, but I’m pretty sure the phrase “heads up” may have also been coined sometime around this period.

Well, that’s all the “defragging” I have time for right now. And, I’m drawing a blank on other “phrase origins” that I’ve stored in my head. I’m sure they will come to me the next time I am standing in the kitchen asking myself … what the hell did I come out here for!