You know how this

$(function() { ... });

will fire whether or not the "document ready" event has already occurred? I want to define an event like that.

That event is a special case in jQuery. I'm wondering if a custom event can behave in the same way, using only the standard event mechanisms.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to define handlers in the "normal" way:

$(document).on("init.mything", function() { ... });

This works now if the above runs before init.mything is triggered. But if it doesn't, then the handler never runs.

What makes this tricky is, I don't want to assume anything except that jQuery has loaded.

Any ideas?