Getting thrown in the Booby-Hatch in old-time Phoenix


Nowadays we don't use terms like "Insane Asylum", which was actually a respectable term at one time, and is rude now, and we would never use the term "Booby Hatch" - for the same reason, and also because, um, the language has changed (if you know what I mean, and I think you do).


I don't know when the slang term "Booby Hatch" became popular for an Insane Asylum, I just remember it from a James Thurber story that I read as a kid ("The Unicorn in the Garden", first published in 1939, summary below). And either the term was still in current use in the 1970s, or I understood from the context of the story. You really don't hear it much these days, for obvious reasons.

As a time-traveler, I'd imagine that if people looked too closely at me, or listened to slang that I used, they might think that I'm kinda crazy, a bit touched, or a Booby. I've often imagined myself walking around old-time Phoenix, wearing my Nikes, and maybe an ASU shirt, and getting some strange looks. I suppose if I tried to pass a five-dollar bill, they'd just laugh at me, even in 1939. Kindly people may just gently take me by the hand when I say that I'm from the 21st Century, but I know that a lot of people would just call me a Booby, and say that I should be in the Booby Hatch, which was (and is, by a much gentler name) at 24th Street and Van Buren in Phoenix.

But of course the moment they came after me with the straight coat, or the butterfly nets, or whatever they used, I would just instantly transport myself back here to the 21st Century, and they'd be left in confusion. And they would learn to never count their Boobies before they're hatched!

Plot summary
A husband sees a unicorn in the family garden and tells his wife about it. She ridicules him, telling him "the unicorn is a mythical beast" and calls him a "booby". When he persists, she threatens to send him to the "booby hatch" (the mental institution). He persists, and she summons the authorities. However, after she tells them what her husband saw and they note her own somewhat loony-looking facial features, they force her into a straitjacket. They then ask the husband if he told his wife he had seen a unicorn. Not wanting to be locked up himself, he prudently tells them that he has not, because "the unicorn is a mythical beast." Thus they take the wife away instead, and "the husband lived happily ever after". The story ends with, "Moral: Don't count your boobies before they're hatched", a play on the popular adage, "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched". Thus, the moral advises not to expect one's hopes to be a certainty.
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