In Your Pants/Beneath the Sheets

Have you seen Hank Green’s Brotherhood 2.0 video entry about “In Your Pants,” the latest blog phenomenon? The gist is this: Add “in your pants” to the titles of well-known books, then…well, see if you can read them aloud without laughing. In his video, Hank provides some examples to get you going: 

 

Rabbit at Rest (in your pants)

Getting the Girl  (in your pants)

Stumbling on Happiness (in your pants)
An Abundance of Katherines (in your pants)

 

Now try this with titles from your own bookshelves (The Devil Wears Prada…Better Than Yesterday…The Meaning of Wife…).

 

Actually, I think we preachers’ kids own territorial rights, if not copyright, to the idea behind this trend. Forced to sit in the front row of marathon church services while my father preached and (repeatedly) passed the offering plate, my siblings and I would try to keep each other awake. Often, we’d do so with a high-stakes but hilarious game of “Beneath the Sheets.” 

The rules were simple: we’d open up our hymnals to a random page, point at a song title, and silently mouth the suffix, “beneath the sheets,” while trying not to laugh. Predictably, we’d dissolve into silent giggles. The consequences of out-loud laughter were fairly high: Interrupt the hellfire-and-damnation diatribe at the pulpit, and the wrath of the entire congregation would rain down mightily upon your small head. 
 

How long would you last? Give it a try:
 

Silent Night (beneath the sheets)

Amazing Grace (beneath the sheets)

Rock of Ages (beneath the sheets)

Come, Lord Jesus…well, you get the idea!


Anyone else remember playing this game?

51 Comments

    • The Mrs. wanted to add “Oh, For a Thousand Tongues Beneath the Sheets.”

      Here are some others…

      “A Virgin So Pure…”
      “Arise, My Soul, Arise…”
      “Revive Us Again…”
      “When Winds Are Raging…”
      “How Tedious and Tasteless…”

      We missed you at PFL…I’m off to work now…

  6. My two favorite kids’ books by Louise Fitzhugh:

    Harriet the Spy Beneath the Sheets, and The Long Secret in Your Pants. Neither appropriate for the Scholastic Book Club, lol.

  7. I have never, ever had giggle fits like I used to in church. What is it about church? Of course, with three sisters, it wasn’t that hard to start a giggle fit. One time I even had my mom going. Sheesh.

    In Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ book Tattoo, I just passed the point where the girls in the book are playing this game but they use ‘in bed’ and fortune cookies. It must be a universal thing.

    Here’s my list of books that I’ve read this year:
    A Mango-Shaped Space (in your pants – oh my!)
    The Salem Witch Tryouts (in your pants)
    Queen of Babble (in your pants)
    Major Crush (in your pants)

    Hee hee, too fun.

    • I know. Probably it’s because we’re not SUPPOSED to laugh that we end up doing it. Temptation always works that way, no. 🙂

      Love your game selections, too!

    • I know. Probably it’s because we’re not SUPPOSED to laugh that we end up doing it. Temptation always works that way, no. 🙂

      Love your game selections, too!

    • In the bathtub, eh? That’s a great place, too! 😉

      “Silent quaking…” perfectly describes the objective, if not the (more obvious) reality. Heh.

  12. We used to play “up your butt” on long drives, or stuck in traffic, with book or movie or song or TV show titles. “Lassie up your butt”–“Three Stooges up your butt”–“Hardy Boys up your butt”…Nancy Drew…The Star Spangled Banner…Superman . ..

  15. I must’ve led a very sheltered childhood. I never heard of these games. Of course, I didn’t go to church and we didn’t have fortune cookies in the tiny, tiny Wisconsin town of my youth. But still……..

    Those were very fun to read and I can picture you in church trying desperately not to laugh out loud.

    • Sounds to me like this game is maybe more popular/familiar than the ones I mentioned, even if the outcome is about the same. Heh. Hmmm….wonder if it’s a regional thing. I should have asked.

  19. LMAO… never played that game before. When I used to attend church, we’d sit in the back of the room and simply talk crap and share gossip about our fellow congregants. Very respectful, you know. Can’t say I’ve ever really seen a hellfire and brimstone type sermon. Must be… something.

    By the way, the first taping of that documentary didn’t come out, but it will be on a billion times this weekend so I haven’t given up on it. I’ll get it for you if I have to… well… learn how to use the VCR. I do need to get your email addy though!

    Hope you’re having a good day!

    • See how much you’re missing? This is just one of many things I think might be worth describing in my memoir — in greater detail, of course.

      Thanks for working on that documentary. I’ll be interested to hear your reactions, if you choose to watch it yourself. My addy is newport2newport AT gmail DOT com

      Have a great weekend!

  21. Thanks for all the giggles. I never did this in church, but hearing all this ends my week on a high note.

    I was thinking about the books on my nightstand….

    Drowning Ruth (in your pants)
    The Confessions of St. Augustine (in your pants)
    The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing (in your pants)
    The New Natural Cat (in your pants)

    Oh dear….

    • The confessions of St. Augustine (beneath the sheets) holds a certain appeal, no? LOL

      FUN STUFF, thanks for weighing in. I’ll bet you’ll be thinking about this all weekend, everytime you pick up a book. 🙂

    • The confessions of St. Augustine (beneath the sheets) holds a certain appeal, no? LOL

      FUN STUFF, thanks for weighing in. I’ll bet you’ll be thinking about this all weekend, everytime you pick up a book. 🙂

  22. Oh my GOSH…I soooooo remember this! But I thought OUR youth group was the one who invented it. Only our tag line was “…in the bed.”

    BTW…we really do need to compare notes sometime. I have two cousins who were Tent Revivalists working the western half of the United States in the 60’s.

      • Probably not until early to mid-March. I was back in Chino/Ontario and Camarillo most of the week-just-past, but didn’t have time to hit OC or Norwalk. I will definitely let you know!

  23. Oh my GOSH…I soooooo remember this! But I thought OUR youth group was the one who invented it. Only our tag line was “…in the bed.”

    BTW…we really do need to compare notes sometime. I have two cousins who were Tent Revivalists working the western half of the United States in the 60’s.

Comments are closed.