My grandfather grew up in poverty in a company owned coal mining town where he was born in 1895. He yold me about a game they played called the
fox and the hounds whenever a new kid came to town. One kid was the
fox. He carried a stick between his legs to simulate a tail. The object was for the hounds to chase the
fox and capture him by grabbing his tail. They always let the new kid win. Unbeknownst to him the had dipped the end of the stick in the muck of an outhouse. Clearly getting
the shit end of the stick was getting a bad and unanticipated result.