Interesting History:

Where did ‘Piss Poor’ come from?

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to

all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the

tannery....if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor".

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even

afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were
the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think
about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their
yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June..

However, since they were starting to smell .... brides carried a

bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom

today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of

the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the

other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.

Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could

actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the

baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood

underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so

all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the

roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the

animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's

raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.

This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and

other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a

bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded

some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than

dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor."

The wealthy had slate floors

that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread

thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter

wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the

door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was

placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle

that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and

added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did

not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner,

leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start

over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had

been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge

hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel

quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up

their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man

could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to

share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high
acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,
causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with
tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were
considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt
bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got

the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination
would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and
prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table

for a couple of days and the family would gather around and

eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence

the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out

of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and

would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.

When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found

to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they

had been burying people alive... So they would tie a string on

the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up

through the ground and tie it to a bell. 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.

And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring!!!