Put the Chairs in the Wagon

Grant, I love collecting expressions of greeting and leave-taking.

We talked recently about the expression, alight and come in when somebody invites somebody in.

Another one that I found recently that I really like, that seems to be more common in the South, in rural areas, that I think you’ll appreciate is, imagine that you’ve had the family over for a visit from someplace far away.

And, you know, you’ve had a great time and then you sort of stretch and you say, well, time to put the chairs in the wagon.

So that means it’s time to pack up the furniture as if you stayed a long time and brought your whole household with you?

Yeah, yeah.

Imagine, you know, if back in the day you didn’t have a whole bunch of furniture at your house and all these relatives come in and so then, you know.

They have to bring their chairs with them, right.

And these days it would be lawn chairs or that sort of collapsible chairs, camp chairs, right?

Yeah, exactly.

This is old-fashioned, western, southern? What is this?

Southern and old-fashioned.

Okay.

Time to put the chairs in the wagon.

I don’t know that one.

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