A: Won’t you have another cup of wine?

    B: No, thanks. I have to go home and hit the hay. I have to get an early start in the morning.

    Note: The idiom means to “go to bed” or “go to sleep.” The term hay was used in the United States to mean bed since the early 20th century. For example, from “People You Know” by the American author George Ade, 1902: After dinner he smoked one perfecto and then, when he had put in a frolicsome hour or so with the North American Review, he crawled into the hay at 9:30 p.m. In 1902, mattresses were often sacks stuffed with straw or hay (hence the similar phrase “hit the sack”). The phrase “hit the hay” seems to have originated in the sports scene. The Oakland Tribune, July 1903, reported this: Sam Berger, the Olympic heavyweight ... was sleepy and he announced that “he was going to hit the hay.”