Weekly Installment of Fun Facts

Well, here it is, Monday, already and it is time for our weekly installment of FUN FACTS. Since Mondays are so tough, I thought it would be nice to start a tradition of having fun on Monday evenings...basically, I am on the hunt for fun facts, something that will make you smile and forget about how rough your Monday may have been. So, let's get to it:

In the 1500's bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and the guests got the top, or the upper crust. So, three guesses where the phrase "upper crust" came from....

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey (I could use some of that tonight...). The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for several days. If the partiers passed out along the road, someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. These partiers were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up. Hence, the custom of holding a wake... (ewww....)

Because England had been populated for so long and is a small land mass, the local folks started running out of places to bury people so they would dig up coffins. What they discovered though was that 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside. It was then they realized that they had been burying people alive. To prevent that from happening going forward, they would tie a string to the wrist of the "corpse", lead the string through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. (this one really creeps me out...) Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell. Thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer".

I probably should have saved these little factoids for Halloween, but when I found them, I wanted to share... Makes you very happy to be here in the 21st century, doesn't it....

Next Monday, we will move past the 1500's, so you don't think I am stuck in one century... Hopefully you enjoyed this short interlude.

Until tomorrow...