H - E - Double Toothpicks

You might remember the time Bart Simpson came home from Sunday School, and when his mom asked what they talked about, he said, "We talked about hell! HELL!"

Not the Towson sign, but you get the point.

That one is the first "cuss word" that most kids pick up, unless they live across the street from a firehouse. We sat and waited for the chance to go around saying, "What the hell" and "It was hotter than the hinges on Hell today!" Those of us who frequented Towson Plaza back in the day will remember the building owned by an oil company up at the top of the hill, and what a thrill it was when the S burned out on the S H E L L sign.

It was a hell of a lot of fun.

Of course, we moved on to the rest of the 7 deadly words you can't say in due time, but there was one particular colloquialism from the long ago that pops up in my mind now and again.  I don't think it's being used currently, so maybe we can revive it.  The term is "play hell."

In one sense, you can use it like this: "This drought is really going to play hell with the crops," but the other quirkier version is when you use it to denote a certain inevitability, as in:

"You broke the garage door opener, and now you're really gonna play hell getting the door raised."

"I have to drive to Catonsville this afternoon and with that beltway traffic, I'm gonna play hell getting there on time."

and

"Joe's really gonna play hell, getting six sandwiches out a half a pound of ham."

I aim to make sure that saying "play hell" does not go the way of "carbon copy," "Jeepers creepers" and "easy as falling off a log."

I know I'm gonna play hell making it happen, but Gee Whiz, I'm gonna try.