COOTIES AND COOTIE CATCHERS
Show of hands: how many of you spent your grade school years giving cooties to your classmates or getting cootie shots so you were immune?
Show of hands: back then, how many of you were certain that all boys had cooties?
Show of hands: today, how many of you are certain males of all ages have cooties? (Come on now! Don't pretend you haven't looked at your significant other and thought or said this at least once.)
Show of hands: who among you remembers cootie catchers? (If you're hesitating, join the club. I had no idea what they were called until I put this post together. Try googling something like 'cootie catcher' when you don't know what its called. Oy.)
Back in my elementary school days, cootie catchers would offer up colors and numbers. If the color you saw and chose was, say, 'pink', the person whose hands were in the cootie catcher would move the cootie catcher (4) times, once for each letter in 'pink'.
That would leave the catcher displaying numbers. You'd choose any visible number and the catcher would be moved the corresponding number of times.
Then you'd point to one of the folds on the catcher and your fortune would be revealed. Nine times out of ten, it would be something like, "You're going to marry Bill Ford" or "You're in love with Jay Levitt" - when what you wanted it to say was, "Steve Richards likes you."
Yeah, cootie catchers could suck big time.
Of course, today we have all sorts of pretty papers we could use to create the cootie catcher of our dreams, as well as books like this one:
You could use cootie catchers as name cards for table place settings, party favors, invitations, etc. You're only limited by what? Say it with me: your own imaginations!
I'm particularly fond of the cootie catcher just above and the one just below.
Do you have an important decision to make? Why not use a cootie catcher to point you in the right direction?
:)
Cootie catchers... brought to you by 17th century Asia and Europe, as well as 20th century USA!
