Word of the Day: shemozzle

What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's....

shemozzle (noun)

A state of confusion and chaos; an uproar

"'What a shemozzle, isn't it?' he said dazedly. 'I think we'd better get out of this don't you?'"
--Roland Pertwee, Men of Affairs (1922)

A few years ago, when I lived in a slightly more urban area, one of my Saturday-night entertainments was simply to look out of my living-room window at a different sort of shemozzle. A crowd of drunken young men would often spill out of a divey bar across the street that called itself The Oasis (but I called The Fight Club). Inevitably, noisy spats would break out, including knife-wielding contretemps. The fracas would eventually draw a wailing squad car to the scene, at which point all the dipsomaniacs and belligerents would scatter, roach-like, in all directions. It was better than reality TV.