yonder in the bushes

I am pleased to report that I like me a lot right now.

Last night the neighborhood book club that Scarf founded met for the second time over Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Of course discussion dissolved from David Sedaris into regular chat, and at the end Scarf said that she thinks she's like a radiator and has to be wept sometimes. I didn't get that until she explained that hot water radiators sometimes need their valves loosened to release water pressure. Or something.

So the next thing out of my mouth was "Yonder in the bushes."

I am torn between hoping no one heard me--or, if they heard me, assuming this ejaculation belonged to another conversation they hadn't heard--and wanting to explain to the world the wonder of Look Through My Window, in which four little kids take the cap off the radiator so they can sail boats and, when others discover the dripping water and demand the return of the cap, the youngest says the cap is "yonder in the bushes" (which is child-ese for "I forgot where I put it"). And Emily and her mother, having dealt with the flood (and found the cap under Anne's pillow), collapse into laughter and gasp out "yonder in the bushes."

Yonder is a great word anyway. There's a sketch that RDC told me about in which the comedian tells of lying in bed at night "afraid of monsters over yonder--Yonder was my teddy bear--."

Are there any little kids these days who actually use the word yonder? Let's bring it back.