Ted Lasso & Smigus Dyngus
S3E4: An obscure punchline name-checks my family's inside joke
Watching this week’s Ted Lasso in bed with my partner, I shot up, sending my laptop down the sheets. Did he just say that?!
At the 12:11 mark, Zava—the eccentric soccer megastar who jumped AC Milan to save Ted Lasso’s team (and save Season 3, in a way)— gave a motivational locker room speech:
“You can be whoever you want to be!
“I let all of my children name themselves once they reach the age of seven. That is why my eldest is called "Smingus Dingus."
Smingus Dingus! That’s OUR thing!
Delivered by the heavily-accented character, it worked as a punchline because it’s simply a funny word. And it contains “dingus.” But when Zava said it, I felt like I just heard someone on TV give away a secret only my household knew.
It’s a term my big brothers and parents have thrown around since forever. The online transcripts of this episode spell it Smingus Dingus, but it we’ve always pronounced it Schimingus Dingus (I think way funnier). It’s an all-encompassing, non-sensical phrase we still use to this day:
Come over for dinner, we’re having Schimgus Dingus….Don’t be such a Schimgus Dingus…I can’t explain why, it was just so Schmingus Dingus of me…
The term is correctly spelled Smigus Dyngus, and its origins are even screwier than us making it part of our family lexicon.
Smigus Dyngus, its origins in Central Europe, is a centuries-old pagan tradition of soaking young women with water on Easter Monday. Sometimes while they’re still in bed. Sometimes carried out in their beds to be doused. Boys chased girls around villages. With buckets. All day.
Oh, and also spanked them with pussy willows.
Whether or not the ritual’s soggy beginnings are based in fertility, harvest hopes, or baptismal (un)subtleties, the early observance branched into bizarro areas that seem to lose the thread of any fathomable ceremony. Otherwise, how do you explain boys banging on tin pans from straw rooftops to announce the next girl to be drenched? Wagons of puppets pulled by people singing songs? Young men dressed as…bears? It begins to sound more like a 90s rave than a sacred festival the deeper you dig.
Poland is the country Smigus Dyngus is associated with the most. But it’s celebrated all over pockets of Europe, and even in large Polish communities around North America. Places like Buffalo and Cleveland hold annual Dyngus Days complete with polka, parades, and sometimes a crowning of that year’s “Miss Dyngus” (an unfortunate title to carry back to high school).
Today’s Smigus Dyngus climate is one of sexual equality—boys and girls of all ages drench each other together! The pagan ritual from ten centuries ago has kind of morphed into a half sponsored-family-safe, half frat-like water fight in the streets. A mischievous tradition over a liquid long weekend.
And here, all the while, when half of Europe, parts of the States, and the damn writing room of Ted Lasso know what Simgus Dyngus is, the Kawchuks thought we had the most obscure inside joke west of Warsaw.
Where did we even hear the term? I have no idea. Our family has been saying Schmingus Dingus for decades, long before Google and the internet itself. A time when all I knew of my Eastern European DNA was frozen perogies and jars of pickled things in Nana’s basement.
Finding out that Smigus Dyngus was a thing, made me feel a little provincial, yet proud I was an early adopter of the phrase around suburban Calgary.
So…I wish you all a lovely long weekend, a happy Easter, and most of all—a very loving and deep Dyngus.
Other stuff I’m chasing and loving this week:
Music: Joe Henry’s new release, All The Eye Can See is the poet and producer at his best. Over 20 guests enter his deep waters, including Daniel Lanois, guitarists Marc Ribot and Bill Frisell, and Henry’s son Levon on saxophone.
Books: In non-fiction, just finished Sarah Polley’s Run Towards the Danger, and the audiobook of Gabor Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, both offering so much. Now, beginning a re-read of Salt: A World History, an old fave. In fiction, I’m enjoying the new (and a bit too long) Age of Vice by Deepit Kapoor, a family epic around the ‘mafia’ in India.
Shows: Like everyone, I’m excited Succession and Kieran Culkin’s filthy insults are back. Harrison Ford reminds us how great he is in the otherwise safe and sentimental Apple series, Shrinking. And really digging the Perry Mason reboot…the second season is more stylish, more noir, and way more cohesive than the first.
Food: Inspired by the Eastern European flavours of Smigus Dyngus (and because I’m solo this long weekend, free to make food th at stinks), I’m cooking classic warm sauerkraut with onion, bacon, and chunks of kielbassa. I freestyle, but here’s a close recipe.
Being a bachelor for four days, I’ll probably eat it in bed with the cats, late at night, watching movies. Sad? Not at all. Dreamy is the word you’re looking for.
Another Polish tradition from Babcia and Dziadek was the New Year’s Day tradition. First grandchild to wish them Happy New Year got a dollar. The problem with that was the grandchildren lived with them. So the rest of the grandchildren never ever got a cent. What a smingus dyngus thing to do!