Nickname knack, part II

Hello again, my friends. Since this is yet another part II, the phrase "pregnant pause" popped into my head. I wonder if the pause has given birth yet; I must admit that I'm not too familiar with the gestation period of silences. And I wonder who the father is...did stutter and pause finally get it on after those awkward years of pent up sexual tension? Wait, I have to stop myself here before I keep going with this nonsense. I caught a glimpse of it, and you're all much better off with me stopping now. Trust me on this.

When I left you yesterday, I was in the middle of talking about the nicknames that Greg and I came up with for people on and around the UCSB campus. There are more, gentle readers, and I saved two of the more memorable ones for today. I'm good like that.

On campus, there is a little restaurant-ish place called the Coral Tree Cafe. It's right by where I worked as a student and also later as a professional staff member, so I went there fairly often. In the mornings, I'd grab some coffee there. In the afternoons, I'd sometimes get a turkey burger or one of their fine soups (mmm, Cheddar Tomato). Greg sometimes joined me there too, and together we got to know the folks who worked there fairly well. First off, there was a worker there that I saw quite often and could not tell if it was a man or a woman.

I know sometimes people say that when they're actually pretty confident it's one or the other, but I seriously didn't know. Every time I'd be leaning one way, I'd go in there and it would be much closer to the other. "Ok, I'm pretty sure it's a woman now," I'd think, and then get blown away by the manliness the next time in. Greg and I referred to this person as They, since that was the pronoun we'd use to get away from the burdensome "he or she" that would've appeared in every sentence about They. The mystery of They may have been solved, because one of the last times I saw them, They was clearly wearing lipstick and sporting breasts that I'm pretty confident weren't there before. It appears They was in a bit of a transition, so maybe Greg and I were more observant that cruel after all.

The other nickname from the CTC was for a young lady that I saw there almost every morning for a while. She was a blonde hippy-ish chick named Jennifer and she wore a hemp necklace. We were familiar enough that we said hi to each other instead of her just telling me what I owed and me paying it. Working on campus and advising thousands of students a year, I was on a "waive and nod" basis with what often felt like the entire student body, so that was fairly standard.

After winter break my senior year, I went into the CTC and a blonde woman said hi to me. I didn't recognize her, but I said hello back in a friendly manner, because let's face it, that's who I am. She asked how my break was, and I quickly glanced at her nametag for some help. "Jennifer," it read. On my way back to her face, I saw a hemp necklace - the same hemp necklace that the other Jennifer wore. I continued the conversation, paid, and left. Greg hadn't met her before since she was on the earlier shift (while he was sleeping), but I brought him in there with me and explained the difference in the best way I could. "I guess it has to be her, but her whole face got oddly puffy and a little...misshapen somehow. It's like she had cortizone shots and Bell's Palsy or something. I know it's not politically correct by any means, but it's almost like she somehow...was made retarded." And because of my sentence structure, Jennifer (if she was indeed Jennifer) became The Past Participle.

A while later, Greg told me that he may have figured out what really happened to The Past Participle. He saw some program on the drug called "Special K" (which did not come with red berries, if memory serves), and some people had bad reactions or something that left them looking kinda like she did. "Oddly puffy and a little misshapen" is still the best way I can describe the transformation. It could've been worse: she could've been transformed into a monstrous vermin after a night of unsettling dreams, for example.

I saw a lot of The Past Participle and They that year as my coffee intake was at a high level, and Greg was always happy to report any Laker or RouMou sightings. He thought he heard that Laker's real name was Jill, but I didn't want to know for sure. We'd nod to Rope Guy and avoid Angry Guy on our way to grab a burrito at Freebird's or TA's, and sometimes we'd talk about the disappearance of Skunk and Skunk's Friend. Neither of us missed Much much though. Ah, college: where likeminded individuals can be simultaneously bright and idiotic. I sure do miss it.

Have a great Thursday, homemen and homewomen, and I'll see you here tomorrow. Please remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with any thoughts, stories, bumper stickers, jokes, or ideas for posts.