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Playing hooky
This morning Christopher decided he was too tired to get up and go to school, so he asked me if he could skip school for the day.
Of course I told him NO (but in a nice way. You know, like "But the police will come and arrest mommy and daddy if you don't go to school!" (Not really. But we might soon if this keeps up.))
So when Frank was walking him to school, Christopher tried to enlist his help: "Why don't we wait till Mom leaves the house and then sneak back home?"
I laughed myself silly over that one but had to wonder why he thought Frank would be a willing co-conspirator. Perhaps I had better supervise them better when they're together.
Fun fact of the day: possible origins of the phrase "playing hooky"
- The Phrase Finder offers a few possible origins, including "to hook it" or "to escape or make off." To "hook something" is also an old slang term for stealing, as in "stealing a day off."
- The Word Detective dates the first printed use of the phrase to 1848 and relates it to the 19th-century phrase "hooky-crooky," which means "dishonest or underhanded." The parent of this phrase is "by hook or by crook," meaning "by any means necessary."
- Word Origins suggests that the phrase comes from hoekje, the Dutch name for hide and seek.
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