Sunday, November 29, 2009

100 Confessions: Nicknames

(87) I create nicknames for people. Sometimes the nicknames don't even make sense. But I find that people get excited about having a nickname. It makes them feel like their part of some elite club.

Examples:
-Kid in my youth group who plays lots of video games and likes to read. One day I'm riding in his car and am surprised by the smell of ramen noodles. I noticed that he has bowl sitting on the floor of the passenger side seat, with the dregs still sloshing a bit at stoplights.
Me: "You eat ramen noodles in the car?"
Kid: "Yeah, I got hungry on the ride home three days ago."

And we called him Noodle. Or Wild Man. Both are true.

-Student from southern California. Had a conversation with her one time while watching the remade 90210 series. My question switched from academic to "is this what you people are like? What's in the water down there?" And so we call her 90210.

-Coworker who was shy. But despite her shyness, she delivered really solid journalism. To build her up, I would call her Big, Bad Brandi. This was inspite of the fact that she was neither big, nor bad. In my defense her name was Brandi.

-Student who didn't know how to cook. She confided to me one day that she'd been eating sloppy joes since she left home. And thus, we called her Sloppy Joe (She wasn't actually sloppy).

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