Stacey from Chelsea, Massachusetts, says her grandfather, a Russian immigrant who grew up on New York City’s Lower East Side, used to warn his grandkids with what sounded like Don’t be a come-upper after he’d cleaned the apartment. The expression puzzled the whole family for years. A come-upper is someone full of ideas and energy, always aspiring, always on the move. In Jewish tradition there’s a long-standing ambivalence about getting too far ahead of yourself or standing out too much from the rest, and grandfather’s warning may have carried exactly that spirit. In other words: The house is clean, so don’t go getting any ideas about new ways to wreck it. This is part of a complete episode.
Those green plastic strips tucked between cuts of meat in supermarket display cases? They’re parsley runners, the result of recommendations from a professional color consultant hired by a grocery chain in the 1950s. Under bright store lights, the...
Daniel from Gardnerville, Nevada, remembers his aunt had a habit of responding to anyone who left the word so hanging there in mid-conversation with, Sew a button on your underwear. It’s is one of a whole family of playful rejoinders, including Sew...
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