Etiquette & superstition: bathroom activities

I had a dream last week where I was in a foreign land that mainly had squat toilets. In this dream, the place I was staying had sort of a compromise toilet for people who preferred sitting to squatting during elimination. Instead of places to put your feet while you situated yourself over the hole, there were porcelain thigh troughs indented into the ground around the hole, so you were sitting, but you were sitting on the floor. I should explain at this point that even before this dream I found the design of a squat toilet preferable to the Western-style seat toilet, but in this dream, the idea of a seat toilet was absolutely disgusting and incomprehensible. I don’t know what this means.

ETIQUETTE: Public toilets are called restrooms in the United States. Private toilets are called bathrooms. Etiquette is slightly different for each room, but basically you should remember that a restroom is a sanctuary, and a bathroom (unless it’s your own bathroom) is not your sanctuary. At a crowded party, don’t do drugs or have sex in the bathroom if there’s only one bathroom, unless you can do your drugs or have sex in less than a minute. Go find a coat closet or a side yard. In a public restroom, don’t use your cellphone. Why do I even have to say this?

SUPERSTITION: If you don’t want your newborn baby to get kidnapped by fairies, you should pee on the doorframe of your house. Fairies hate pee. Also, bubbles on the surface of your urine is a sign that you will soon get a lot of money.

Photo by levork on Flickr

Etiquette & superstition: nuts

I know one good joke about nuts, but you’ve probably heard it already so I’m not going to write it here. Also, it’s my mom’s birthday and I’m not sure she would like the joke I know about nuts. Actually she probably would, but I’m still not going to write it here.

ETIQUETTE: Most finger foods that you serve at the dining table are supposed to be served on a doily-covered plate or platter. One exception to this is food that is served in bowls, such as nuts. I haven’t found any explanation as to why things in bowls don’t need doilies, but anyway: hooray, nuts!

SUPERSTITION: A person who gathers nuts on September 14th is sure to meet Satan on his excursion. As noted in Poor Robin’s Almanack of 1670, meeting the devil on this trip will likely “scare him worse than a rosted shoulder of mutton will do a hungrie man.” Yeah, I’m not a fan of mutton either.

Photo by ~BostonBill~ on flickr

Etiquette & superstition: females on boats

Lest you think I am repeating myself with today’s topic, let me assure you I am not. I have previously discussed etiquette and superstition about ladies on sailboats before, but this is my first etiquette and superstition post about women on boats. Dig the distinction.

ETIQUETTE: On a yacht, the vessel’s colors (flags) are hoisted promptly at 8 AM. The hours before colors are the typical time for men on the yacht to enjoy nude swimming. Therefore, ladies are frequently prohibited from going on deck before 8 AM; there is no such prohibition for women, however.

SUPERSTITION: A woman on board a ship typically angers the sea. Angering the sea is not the goal of most sailors. The only way to get the sea to calm down again is for the woman to take her clothes off, or at least her shirt. The sight of a woman’s bare breast makes the sea all shy and embarrassed and it will leave the boat alone.

Photo by Mr Noded on flickr

Word of the day for Thursday, September 3rd

You probably know this word already; it’s not that rare a word or anything. I mainly like this word because I always forget its definition. I always think it means “vomit.” It doesn’t.

I’ve been reading a book by this writer who likes putting silly songs in his stories, so I’ve been inspired to write my own little song about this word so I can remember that I always get its definition wrong. It goes like this:

If you think it’s “vomit,”
but it’s not,
it’s…

Yawp. A yawp is merely a sharp yell or a shriek or a noisy, foolish utterance. So even though it doesn’t mean “vomit,” it is not recommended that you yawp in the workplace.

Etiquette & superstition: eclipses

The moon is sure being an attention hog this week, isn’t it? Right about now on the other side of the world the moon is busy eclipsing the sun. Calm down, moon. Celebrity is both a blessing and a curse.

ETIQUETTE: When viewing an eclipse in a public space, be considerate of other people and their photographic and/or astronomical apparatus. Aim to stay at least a full body’s length away from any equipment.

SUPERSTITION: A solar eclipse is what happens when a giant snake or dragon eats the sun, and it is a portent of great doom and tragedy. It’s best not to undertake any new task in the period three days prior to and three days after an eclipse. Pregnant women should stay indoors and not touch their bellies during both solar and lunar eclipses to prevent cleft palate and dramatic birthmarks on their children. And nobody should eat or drink during the solar eclipse, as food and water is poison during that time. Oh, this is terrible; we’re going to be starving and thirsty and shivering in the dark and our pregnant women can’t touch their bellies, which everybody knows is impossible if they’ve ever spent any time around pregnant women. It’s been said that if you make a lot of noise during the eclipse, the dragon will get scared and barf up the sun, so if you happen to have a tuba handy you might want to help us all out. Otherwise, I don’t know how we are going to survive this six minutes and thirty-nine seconds of utter hell.

Luney toons

You’ve got your Japanese moon, your Chinese moon, your German moon, your Soviet-era Russian moon, your British prog moon, but today I’m in the mood for a good old Disney moon.

Etiquette & superstition: french kissing

We’re in the midst of the Tour de France, and July 14th is Bastille Day, so I think the time is ripe for a discussion of french kissing.  Not french kissing tee hee; I know there’s etiquette and superstition associated with the ritual of close-contact tongue wrestling, but the written protocol I’ve found so far in reference to it is rather lacking.  I just mean kissing… in France.

ETIQUETTE: When you have won particular battles for the day as a racer in the Tour de France, you’re going to have to go up on a podium to accept your jersey and trophy/carnival lion toy/stuffed Yeti. And the people giving you your jersey and trophy/carnival lion toy/stuffed Yeti are two very attractive young French girls. You are supposed to kiss them, but only on the cheeks. Left cheek first, then right cheek, then left cheek. If you’re in Italy, say for the Giro d’Italia, just do two kisses; left cheek, then right cheek. You are one classy athlete, sir.

SUPERSTITION: You know, the French are kind of boring in terms of their kissing superstitions. “If you want luck in gambling, kiss the cards.” Whoopee. You know, I’m Alsatian in heritage, so really the whole German/French line is a little blurred for me. Can we go with some German kissing superstition instead? I think we should. Okay, here goes: you should kiss a donkey on the mouth if you want to get rid of a toothache. Yes. Maybe it’s the Weinzapfel in me talking, but I think that’s a much better superstition than the gambling/kissing cards nonsense.

I know there’s etiquette and superstition associated with the ritual of close-contact tongue wrestling, but I haven’t been able to find anything written about it yet worthy of note.

Etiquette & superstition: frogs

There’s a neighborhood near my house that is known as Frogtown. It’s apparently called Frogtown because of its proximity to the LA River, and the former proliferation of toads around said river. Some people apparently don’t know the difference between frogs and toads. Anybody with a passing interest in etiquette and/or superstition should be able to distinguish the two, however. Today we will only focus on frogs.

ETIQUETTE: Frogs’ legs are a big pain in the neck to eat properly. You can only pick them up with your fingers after you have used a knife and fork to pry the bones apart and pull off the majority of the meat. Pretty much the only thing that is good about frog meat is that it is permissible to eat on Friday even if your religion has a “no meat on Fridays” restriction. For purposes of church dietary law, frogs are considered fish. So are beavers.

SUPERSTITION: A frog possesses the soul of a dead child, so it’s unlucky to kill one. An exception can be made, however, if you have cancer. Swallowing a bunch of small frogs whole is your best cure in that case, and if you already have cancer you’re pretty unlucky as it is, so you might as well try it.

Etiquette & superstition: peas

You eat your peas with honey? You’ve done it all your life? You know they sure taste funny, but it keeps them on your knife? Well, that’s one way to do it, I guess. The proper and refined way sure is stupid.

ETIQUETTE: Proper pea-eating etiquette is frequently cited as one of the few surviving examples of etiquette as absurd classism rather than a tool to ease social interaction. It is so ridiculous, in fact, that I have had to prepare a visual aid to explain it. You take your fork, turn it upside down, put your butter knife on your plate near the pile of peas, smush the peas with the underside of your fork tines against the knife wall, and then lift the smushed peas on the bottom of your fork up to your mouth.

Do not scoop them with your fork, do not spear them with your fork. And by no means eat them with a spoon. Barbarian.

SUPERSTITION: If, when shelling peas, a girl finds a peapod containing nine peas, she should put the pod up on the kitchen door lintel. The first man who walks through the kitchen door after she does this is going to be her husband. If the first man walking through the door is her brother or a real jerk or something, it’s possible that he just has the same first name as the girl’s future husband. Phew.

Sometimes it all comes together

I just had another one of those moments – one of those moments when I find a few of my interests have come together in a fantastic package, and I’m amazed that I didn’t know about this fantastic package earlier. An example earlier this year of one of these moments was when I started hearing about Edward Gorey’s naughty etiquette book The Recently Deflowered Girl. I have loved Edward Gorey and naughty books and etiquette since I was a kid, so how was it that I never knew about this book until this year?

But anyway, I just had another one of those moments. I love Mad Magazine artist Don Martin. I inherited my parents’ pretty good ’50s-’60s jazz vinyl collection. I play trombone. Why was I not aware until just 30 minutes ago that Don Martin made album covers for Prestige Records?

Finding these moments makes me feel like I’m on the right path somehow. Do you ever have these moments?