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Thu 19 Oct, 2006 01:34 pm
Put your thinking caps on and try to tell me what the name of those silly little fortune telling things were that we (girls) used to love way back when? Look at this to jog your memory:
Edit [Moderator]: Link removed Surely someone here remembers this!
didn't even need to see the link....
cootie catchers.
Chai's got cooties?
EWWWWWW!!!!!
Chai's got cooties! Chai's got cooties!
As a matter of fact, it was discussed briefly in the thread linked below.
Starts about halfway down the page.
Cootie Catchers
At one time Veterans of WW I trench warfare had Cootie Clubs.
I remember seeing them march in 4th of July parades when I was a child in the '40's. My mother did not feel that cooties (body lice) were "nice".
I also have vague memories of Ladies Auxiliary's members being known as "cooties". This really annoyed my mother.
Renee - are you talking about the paper you folded so that it fit onto your thumbs and pointer fingers? It was a single sheet of paper folded like origami to create four pyramids. A finger fit into each pyramid and a fortune was written on the many sides. The person holding this thing would move their fingers in and out to open and close the paper pyramids. A girl would pick one of the pyramids and what ever was written on it was supposed to come true. If this is what you are thinking of I have no clue as to what it was called, but I do remember them.
Green Witch wrote:Renee - are you talking about the paper you folded so that it fit onto your thumbs and pointer fingers? It was a single sheet of paper folded like origami to create four pyramids. A finger fit into each pyramid and a fortune was written on the many sides. The person holding this thing would move their fingers in and out to open and close the paper pyramids. A girl would pick one of the pyramids and what ever was written on it was supposed to come true. If this is what you are thinking of I have no clue as to what it was called, but I do remember them.
They were called Cootie Catchers Green Witch!
See my link above.
I know the term cooties, but I never heard the paper thingys called that. Maybe it's a regional thing. I grew up outside of NYC and I emailed a girlfriend from my school days who says we called them "finger fortunes". I like the little story that goes with your explanation - ahhh memories.
More correctly said: Cooties got Chai.
Green Witch wrote:I know the term cooties, but I never heard the paper thingys called that. Maybe it's a regional thing. I grew up outside of NYC and I emailed a girlfriend from my school days who says we called them "finger fortunes". I like the little story that goes with your explanation - ahhh memories.
Hey, I'm a Jersey girl. I guess we had more cooties across the river.
Green Witch wrote:Renee - are you talking about the paper you folded so that it fit onto your thumbs and pointer fingers? It was a single sheet of paper folded like origami to create four pyramids. A finger fit into each pyramid and a fortune was written on the many sides. The person holding this thing would move their fingers in and out to open and close the paper pyramids. A girl would pick one of the pyramids and what ever was written on it was supposed to come true. If this is what you are thinking of I have no clue as to what it was called, but I do remember them.
Yes! those are what I am talking about!! My husband said the boys called them cootie catchers!! I do believe the girls called them by their real name.. but, no one seems to remember. My link is gone.. but..it did have a good image of this origami contraption.. Thanks anyways!
We called 'em cootie catchers in Minnesota, too. (Girls.)
I kept reading the link that Chai first posted and thought it interesting that the women growing up in Europe (C.Jane and Dag) called it "Heaven and Hell". Anyone know the origins of the thing? The term cooties is at least 100 years old. Growing up I thought a girl two years ahead of me had invented it, apparently not.
We called them fortune tellers.
We had them but never really called them anything specific over in England, at least not that I know of. Cooties I think is also more an American thing, I guess our equivalent was germs.... but you couldn't get anyone's germs if you had "paxies"(fingers crossed), however that's spelt , and could get rid of them by passing them on to someone else. Anyone else remember this?
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