What’s this about a chicken leg?
In short, the leftover chicken leg is a girl who had a sexual relationship that was ended by the guy. To my bestie & I, it was such an undesirable state of doom that, if it happened to us, we vowed to never admit we’d been dumped lest we become a leftover chicken leg, too. We did not want to be anyone’s leftovers. We were not chicken legs. Shit talkers though? Absolutely.
I made that term up when I was about 14 & the night that inspired it is here, at #5. I called the girls I got into a physical altercation with “leftover chicken legs”.
Other Terms of “Discretion” (Don’t Judge Me)
Masher: a pervert or otherwise sexual deviant who would be undesirable in an intimate situation. “Mashers come out after dark & steal little girls” & “I wouldn’t go out with him, you’ll be drunk & mashed by midnight.” Bestie’s dad is where we first heard this word & we don’t know if he made it up or not. But we used it & no one ever knew what we were talking about.
Red Rum: Murder spelled backwards. This is one of the silliest that stuck. I had a song that went with it that was made up around a bonfire. It’s to the tune of Red, Red Wine. If I can remember it all, I will post its lyrics somewhere. Its a song about… murder. All our friends came to know this term because of my silly song. When I was mad, I once said that the Rum spilleth over (in reference to the bonfire song we all now knew). There was also an occasion where someone came within sight that one of my friends didn’t care for, & I stopped breathing & had this look of dread on my face. Bestie said, “what’s wrong?” I said, “somebody brought the rum”. This let her know that, under the right circumstances, there could be a really nasty fight tonight. And if anyone around us looked confused & said, “What?” I could just say, “nothing” & then move to a place to jump between them if I had to. Secret safe.
Horsips: This is bad. Horsips are whores who gossip. And it was a terrible slur reserved for the worst foe. I said it in a sentence that had everybody laughing way too long: “That nasty little horsip better stop running her mouth.” And then it stuck & became a word. Because when you’re in high school, the word “whore” gets used way too much. During that time, the animosity among girls is at the highest it will ever be. I wanted my insults to be unique I guess.
Leviticus: This became just Levi. It is said or implied in the book of Leviticus that bleeding women are unclean. When we were unclean, we said were with Levi. “Who the hell invited Levi!” was a common phrase. Also, “Is Levi in my pants? My butt feels wet. Look at my butt.” Our circle of friends learned what this referred to but anyone else who overheard wouldn’t know, because really, not everybody needs to know when you are bloody & feeling gross.
Goosebumps: this came from being in the vicinity of a Loosie Goosie. A girl who was loose was a goose, that part is easy I think. We didn’t use words like slut, whore or tramp because 1. they were common & losing power, 2. we weren’t really into insulting people & it was a serious accusation. Saying “goose” made us feel like we weren’t being too judgy. And it was a way to secretly be jealous with no one knowing & we could stand closer to our boyfriend saying we were chilly & had goosebumps. Never let a boy know you’re jealous.
Bumper: a place or party where people bumped uglies, which was one of my fav terms. “He’s at it again with his bumper parties & wants us to show up for that so people can spread more rumors.” Usually our camp outs were just us goofing off & being silly, drinking, but there was what we called a “bumper crew”. There were certain people we knew if they got invited they’d do things they regretted on Monday, which turned our whole party into a “bumper” with us guilty by association. We usually wouldn’t even go but if we did, we just stayed at the other end of the deck, making up songs about each other & BSing with whoever wasn’t with the bumper crew & making it clear that we were not “bumpers”.
Pendejo: Spanish word meaning stupid, we just redefined it to mean a guy that was a cheater, a man Ho. It was multi purpose & pronounced with different emphasis to fit the situation & could be either said with a b sound or a p sound. This was born when I dubbed a guy “Captain Bend A Hoe” when he cheated on my friend (spin from save-a-hoe) & from then we just used the word any way we wanted to & from the context of the sentence we knew what we meant. If we knew a guy cheated on somebody, it became a verb. “They broke up? What happened?” “Pendejo” & it kept what we knew “between us”. If anyone was close by when we said it, it just sounded like we said the break up was because he was stupid. If that were really the case, we would have just said stupid in English. Guys get dumped for being stupid all the time.
I think that’s about it that we used regularly but I was always making up new words for the situation. I was pretty animated & clowning around. I still am. Some words stuck & some didn’t.
