Nickname knack

Hello, good morning, bienvenidos, and elcomeway on this glorious Wednesday. Why is this day glorious? Funny you should ask: today's month and day are as close to binary code as we'll see for the remainder of the year, unless you count tomorrow. And if that fact's not exciting enough for you, then you...really aren't as big a nerd as I. Mazel tov.

I'll stop with the bowling stories in an effort to gain favor with the staunch anti-bowling population. Still keeping with one of the themes of the week though, I shall continue writing about names. Ever since I can remember, I've always liked to have nicknames for people. I know that doesn't make me rare or anything, but I think I actually was a little different. I liked to have cool nicknames for people that no one else called them. This was a challenge, because it was either obscure enough that no one knew who I was talking about and looked at me like I was even weirder than I really was, or it was a good name and others adopted it quickly.

For example, I was friends with a young lady named Ariel near the end of my illustrious high school career. I started calling her Azrael, who was Gargamel's cat in The Smurfs. I thought it was a good name, but I was pleased to find that I was the only one calling her that. About six months went by when one day in drama class, I called her over to me. "Did you just call her Azrael?" someone asked. "Yeah," I said, "Like Gargamel's cat." "Of course, like Gargamel's cat. That's great!" Uh oh. 24 hours later, the whole class was calling her Azaiel. I don't know why they hadn't heard it until that point, but I was no longer special in calling her that. Therefore, I felt like I needed a new name for her. I tried "Venariel" for a little while, but it never took. I still haven't figured out why. Eventually, I went back to just calling her by her real name, which happily put me back in the minority.

Upon getting to college, I was pleased to find that my friend Greg was with me in coming up with names for people. This was different though, because it was more along the lines of codenames for people when we wanted to more secretly refer to them. Let me preface this by saying that these names weren't the most original, but we enjoyed them nonetheless. First off, there was a cute young lady who was made even cuter by the fact that she was watching a Laker game in the rec room with us. Of course we didn't speak to her or anything. From that day on though, she was simply "Laker," as in, "Guess who I saw at the library. Lakerrrr." No, not terribly original, but a code that could not easily be interpreted. After all, you can't spell interpret without Peter.

Much more indecipherable was a blonde student who we saw around my building quite often. She was fairly attractive, but I couldn't help but point out to my friends how incredibly round her face was. It was almost a perfect circle, and it stood out like...like a circular face would. Using a nickname ascribed to Charles Barkley for being chunky, I once referred to her as the "Round Mound of Rebound." I know that's not nice, but she very quickly became Round Mound to us. More accurately, Greg and I usually called her "RouMou" as a nickname for the nickname.

A guy with a streak down the middle of his hair was quickly pegged as Skunk. I realize that's not very creative, but Skunk's friend who was always with him became Skunk's Friend as well. "Know who's in my Milton section? Skunk's Friend. RouMou's in the lecture, but she must have another discussion." This didn't sound even remotely strange to us after just a few short weeks.

More followed. A guy who liked quoting Jim Carrey became Much, because he ended a few sentences with that word in Jim Carrey's voice. Greg played pool with Much once, and it was excruciating. There was a young lady we called Goofy, solely because she once hooked up with a friend of ours who unfortunately resembled that cartoon dog of that name. Yes, Goofy was a dog.

The transient population of Isla Vista, California was not spared. One man, whose faculties were not completely in his possession, once screamed at me from across the street for no reason. He was very angry, and thus, Angry Guy was born. I avoided him at all cost after that. Shithead was pretty cool though. He had a nasty, dark ponytail that looked like one giant dreadlock...or a piece of poop on his head. Ta-dah, and Shithead was born! He always seemed nice enough; I just couldn't get past his choice of hair style. Before you accuse me of being mean and cold-hearted in the face of the plight of the homeless, his hair was definitely a choice and not just the outcome of neglect. He worked to make his hair look literally like crap, and I'll never understand his motivation.

Lastly in that sub-category, we had Rope Guy. This one wasn't a secret, and other people usually called him Rope Man, The Homeless Guy with the Rope, or some variation thereof. As you might expect, he had a rope. More specifically though, he stood on Pardall Rd. every day with his rope, swinging it around near the ground like he was trying to do some lasso trick. "Ya know," Dusty once told me, "I don't mean to be rude, but I'd kind of expect him to be better at that after all the practice." He was right; after hours and hours each day of twirling the rope around, I would've thought he'd have made big leaps in ability as well. Nope, he just twirled the rope. There are far worse ways to spend one's days, but I'm not sure how many more boring ways there are.

Oh no, do you know what I'm feeling? Yes, your darkest fears are confirmed: it's another "To Be Continued" post in the same week as another. I think this is unprecedented. A three-parter happened once a little while ago, so that's already precedented. This, though, is something special (or laziness and a dwindling supply of ideas - you be the judge). Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday, and I'll catch you on the flipside. "The flipside" is my new name for Thursday apparently.