proof that I am cool enough

On September 18th at 8:00pm, the infamous Rob Brown posted a Facebook update that caught my eye. He said he was willing to proofread and edit, FOR FREE, a short essay on knees and their specialization in awesomeness while attached to bees. I was bored and curious to see if I could write something other than a memo, so I accepted. With the original deadline and 2 extensions long gone, I am forcing myself to sit down and put pen to paper. Or at least, fingers to keyboard…

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In order to truly comprehend something, we must first study its’ history; you cannot know where you are going, with out understanding where you have been. According to the reliable source that is Wikipedia, the origin of the phrase “the bee’s knees” dates back to the 1920s when it became popular in the U.S. Stories in circulation about the phrase's origin include: "b's and e's" (short for "be-alls and end-alls"), and a corruption of "business". How those innocent little bees came to be associated with bad business is beyond me, but their nasty stingers probably didn’t help. Other catch phrases of the day included "the cat's whiskers" (possibly from the use of these in radio crystal sets), "the cat's pyjamas" (pyjamas were still new enough to be daring), and similar phrases which made even less sense and didn't endure: "the eel's ankle", "the elephant's instep", "the snake's hip".

Can we side-bar for a second here? People just don’t talk like that anymore and frankly it’s a shame. I’m going to make it a goal to use these phrases in my daily conversations and bring back the good old days, one animalistic phrase at a time.

Another tenuous connection between the bee's knees and an actual bee relates to Bee Jackson. Ms. Jackson was a dancer in 1920s New York and popularised the Charleston, being credited by some as introducing the dance to Broadway in 1924. She went on to become the World Champion Charleston dancer and was quite celebrated at the time. It wouldn’t be jumping to conclusions to correlate the popularity of the expression as a reference to her and her very active knees. Who cares if it was being used prior to 1924? Her name was Bee, and her knees were ‘it’.

But seriously folks, from a technical/literal standpoint, the “bee’s knees” do serve a purpose; if it weren’t for those lovely little patellas, we would not have honey. You see, the pollen baskets of bees are located on the mid-segments (AKA, knees) of their tiny little legs. Basically, the ‘awesomeness of knees in relation to bees’ is quite straightforward – the concentrated goodness is found at the knees! As bees buzz around from flower to flower, the pollen that is used to make honey is stored in their sacs. And yes, I realize there is a dirty joke in there, but I digress.

Listen up, Listen up, please/Check my steez/Insect ligaments, I'm the bee's knees

Now I know that you’re thinking this is all well and good, but when and why would anyone use this dated expression? The thing is, the phrase has also become synonymous with excellence and being of the highest quality, so really it should get used more often. Case in point: School of Rock. (Yes, I am about to quote Jack Black. Get over it. He is funny.) When shy, self-conscious Lawrence is nervous about playing the keyboard, Mr. S pulls him aside and tells him that “he is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas” Even though Larry obviously had no idea what that meant at the time, he knew it was good, and he went on to rock out because he ‘was cool enough’. So not only does it mean something great, but it can also be used as a motivational phrase. Move over Tony Robbins, Bee Jackson is coming!

On a personal note, when you consider the options in our current vernacular, I would rather be referred to as “the bee’s knees” as opposed to “the shiznit” any day. But at the end of it all, the one thing that matters is that those awesome knees bring some serious honey to the table. And that, my friend, is the cat’s pyjamas.