Morning Commute Thought

[moon_custafer]

Is “stealing a traffic cone and taking it home” the direct replacement for “putting a lampshade on your head” as the trope for indicating that a Very Good Time was/is being had? They both have that feeling of performative drunken zaniness. OTOH, I think of the traffic cone as more of a UK and the lampshade as a North American thing; also the milieu is house-party vs. evening out bar-hopping with your mates— but that may simply reflect a shift in how and where social drinking happens. 

I haven’t seen the lampshade thing referenced in at least twenty years, except in the deliberately retro work of Shaggy or Ape Man or whatever he’s calling himself these days, but (thinks) it’s a present-tense way of indicating you’re tipsy, isn't it? You're doing it to amuse/annoy your fellow guests, and you leave the lampshade at your host’s house at the end of the evening. By contrast, traffic-cone stealing is more like bringing home <i>proof</i> of your evening out, even/especially if the only audience is your hungover self the next morning.

I might have my Hallowe'en costume sorted.

Comments

[pedanther]

There's a statue of Wellington in Glasgow that's apparently been wearing a traffic cone almost continuously for decades -- every time the authorities remove it, somebody puts a new one on.

Someone I know once told me that when Scottish Independence becomes a reality, the statue will be replaced with a statue of a huge traffic cone with a tiny Wellington on its head.