One More Question Than I Can Answer

Children are famous for this, aren't they? They keep asking questions until they arrive at the one you can't answer--and so you, adult-like, say, I don't know--let's look that up! Or you lie--make something up. Or, these days, you bark to Alexa, if your child hasn't already done so, realizing (because of Alexa) that he/she doesn't really need you any longer. Sad ...

You know the sequence of questions I mean:

KID: What is that yellow bright thing up there?
YOU: The sun.
KID: What is it?
YOU: It's a star.
KID: Why doesn't it look like other stars?
YOU: It's much closer to us.
KID: Why is it yellow?
YOU: Fire can be yellow.
KID: Why is a fire yellow?
YOU: Alexa!

Joyce is like this, too. She keeps asking until we reach the extent of my knowledge (in many cases, a very short journey). At which time, out comes her iPhone ... and I feel a pang of something very like jealousy.

An example from last night. We were driving over to Aurora on an errand to Marc's (I needed some flour), and, somehow, in her monologue, she hit up on the expression hell in a handbasket.

She wasn't quite sure how that expression went; I told her (going to hell in a handbasket). Then--and I knew this was coming, knew what I was going to have to say (I don't know)--she asked another question. Where does that come from?

I said I didn't know.

Fortunately, by the time we got home, we had moved on to other things I don't know, but I remembered it just now, and here is what I found:

Not much.

Not one of my reference books says anything about it.

Online? Much uncertainty, though people seem to agree (by consulting the same sites, no doubt) that it is an Americanism dating back to the Civil War. (Here's one link to one guy dealing with it.) Apparently there are other variations, too--hell in a handcart, hell in a wheelbarrow. Etc.

My own guess? You are (or things are) going to hell, buddy. And the transportation is not going to be comfy.

Oh, and here's William Safire in 1990 expatiating about it: link. Unfortunately, he mentions no sources for what he's found ... He cites a later origin--1913--and a different form (heaven in a handbasket). Seems he didn't know about the earlier reference.

Alexa!