Cooties

Cooties

Also known as “lice, gray backs, seam squirrels, boches, and … (deleted by censor).

• They are gray.
• They are bloodsuckers.
• They live in blankets and clothes.
• They breed and lay eggs.

If you do not get rid of them they will cause sores and boils; and you will be an UNPOPULAR candidate for a hospital.

However, cooties is also a fictional childhood disease, used in the United States of America and Canada as a rejection term and an infection tag type game or contest.

A child is said to “catch” cooties through close contact of an “infected” person or from a person of the opposite sex of the same age. Often the “infected” person is someone who is perceived as different, such as being of the opposite sex, disabled, or shy, or who has peculiar mannerisms.

Usually the phrase is used by boys,  as in “Now you’ve got girl cooties.” The phrase is most commonly used by children aged from 3 to 10; however, it may be used by children older than 10 in a cruel, sassy, or playful way.

In the United States, children sometimes “immunize” one another from cooties by administering a “cootie injection”. Typically, one child administers the “shot”, using an index finger to trace circles and dots on another child’s forearm while reciting the rhyme, “Circle, circle, Dot, dot, – Now you’ve got the cootie shot!” And, in some variations, a child then says, “Circle, circle, Square, square, – Now you have it everywhere!”