Stupid Nicknames – Regular Guy

Scooter?

brian — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 17:27:01 +0000

Our government has disappointed me greatly. This has nothing to do with who sits on the Supreme Court or anything silly like that. This has to do with a great issue of national security.

How can an adult who voluntarily uses the name “Scooter” get national security clearance?

This issue should cross all political and social lines. America should stand together to right this terrible wrong. I don’t see how we can remain silent.

America may have a serious political problem on its hands, but we can never get to the bottom of the matter as long as we keep having to wrap our minds around the concept of someone named “Scooter” working in The White House without a job that involves delivering mail.

I have no problems with nicknames. I love nicknames. Everyone should have several nicknames.

But once you accept responsibility to determine how this country runs, you give up the right to be called “Scooter” without everyone snickering behind your back.

If people called him Scooter as a joke, I could deal with the whole scenario. But this man gives business cards to foreign dignitaries with a nickname on it. It’s bad enough we have a cabinet secretary called Tommy. Now we have made up nicknames in high places?

Do you think we would have ever won the Cold War if we had told the Russians that they would have to deal with “Scooter” on some important issue?

In the classic movie, “Red Dawn,” a bunch of plucky teenagers rose up to fight the commies when they invaded the middle of the U.S. Led by such great American fighting heroes as Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Grey, the kids repelled the red horde.

Was their battle cry, “Scooter?” Of course not. “Wolverines,” they cried out. Sure, that was their high school’s mascot, but no one would ever think of using “Scooter” as a nickname for a football team, would they?

Not on your life. “Scooter” doesn’t put fear in the heart of the enemy.

I went to college with a guy we called “Scooter.” His real name was Jason, but some girl at a party decided that we should call him “Scooter.” So we did.

He accepted the nickname grudgingly. Since he was dating one of the prettiest girls in the school, he managed to survive.

But I have a feeling that he stopped introducing himself as “Scooter” the minute he stopped spending Saturday nights at fraternity parties.

That’s the way it should be.

I can’t hear the world “Scooter” without thinking of that guy. He almost never combed his hair and had a goofy sense of humor. That’s a “Scooter.” You should never give “Scooter” the launch codes.

Americans have a bad reputation in the world today for a number of reasons. Is this a surprise with “Scooter” handling important government matters?

Americans have a long, proud tradition of letting government know where to draw the line. The time has come for another great chapter in that history.

If we don’t act now, imagine what might happen next? “Sparky” for the Supreme Court? “Stinky” for President?

I don’t even want to think about it.

What’s in a Name?

brian — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 17:37:40 +0000

When my co-workers celebrated my birthday the other week, a smile came across my face when I saw the envelope with my birthday card. It simply read: “Shea.”

That was one of the best things that could have happened. For as long as I can remember, I have either attracted nicknames or been called by my last name instead of my first.

I don’t get that much anymore. First of all, I am moving into that territory where I am known as “Mr. Shea” or “Bridget’s Dad.” That’s pretty disheartening.

Secondly, no one I grew up with or knew from college lives around here. That’s where most of my nicknames came from. I honestly think I knew people in college who didn’t know my first name.

Somehow in college, people started to call me “monster.” I think it came from wrestling practice, but I’m not really sure. It stuck and took on a number of variations – monster o’shea was perhaps my favorite.

Then there were the plays on words – clishea, ricoshea, twoshea. My friend Ross always seemed to come up with a new one each time we hung out.

And because of the many lectures my fraternity received about the dangers of hazing, people started calling me Sheazing.

But the old standard with simply “Shea.”

A couple of days before I graduated from college, I took a couple of my siblings out to one of my favorite watering holes for a couple of beers. Some of my best friends were there and Carolyn came over to introduce herself to my family.

“Hi, Brian!”

I just gave her this quizzical look. I don’t think I had heard her call me that since we met during our freshman year. For four years, I was “Shea” and she was “Ho,” a derivation of her last name.

Her boyfriend’s brother came to visit us once at school and couldn’t get over the fact that everyone called her “Ho.” That bothered him for some reason.

But that was the way things went. I hung out with Egg, TR and Bud, not Mr. Edgerton, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Dwyer. The yearly portrait for my fraternity had some of the funniest nicknames under some of the pictures.

People I know through the Internet call me “monster” because I use that as a username on some Web sites, but that’s pretty much where it ends these days. And those people only pick up on it because I use the nickname, not because they came up with it.

My wife doesn’t even shorten my first name. She doesn’t like nicknames very much.

In fact, when we selected baby names, one of the rules was that it could not be easily shortened into a nickname. Naturally, some of my family has started to call her “Bridge,” but we’ll all survive.

I know that, as I grow up, having a nickname might sound silly to some people, but I like it. One of my favorite experiences reading the newspaper is seeing nicknames in the obituaries. I try to think of how that creative name came to be.

When I looked at my last name on the card a few weeks ago, I felt like I hadn’t added a year to my age. I felt younger, more vital.

I felt like a monster again.

Wedgies for Peace

brian — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 18:17:30 +0000

As Americans, we owe a great debt to our heroes. I’m not talking about soldiers and sailors, but the real heroes that protect us from harm within our borders. State legislators.

We have a new hero in Virginia by the name of Algie T. Howell Jr.

Besides surviving numerous beatings as a teenager for the name “Algie,” he has made a great contribution to American politics.

Algie is protecting us from our underwear.

A bill sponsored by Algie was well on its way to becoming law in Virginia. If it passed, anyone who “exposes his (or her) below-waist undergarments in an offensive manner” could have been fined $50.

This legislation prompts two questions.

First, why does Algie want plumbers to pull up their pants? And how will we ever be able to face the French when they find out we have a lawmaker named Algie?

Actually, plumbers and other tradesmen should be OK, according to one newspaper report. All the debate centers around how young people will be targeted because of the baggy pants and low-riding jeans that allow underwear to stick out the top.

“If you want to show your underwear in your private home, I don’t have any objections,” Algie told a newspaper, which makes you wonder how much time he has spent developing that theory, but that’s another column for another day.

Maybe Algie’s worried about exposed underwear because someone who thought Algie was a funny name made sure that the future lawmaker had a steady diet of wedgies in middle school.

I propose we ban wedgies instead of exposed underwear. Or give people who propose silly laws a wedgie in public.

I never knew that underwear had taken up such a big role in the moral decline of the country. I see people like this every once in a while, but I just avert my eyes.

Now I know that I should have been more vigilant. Algie – I can’t say that name without giggling – has set me straight.

“To vote for this bill would be a vote for character, to uplift your community and to do something good not only for the state of Virginia, but for this entire country,” Algie said.

Yes, stopping people from having their underwear stick out from their pants will change all of America. Wow.

What cracks me up is that the law doesn’t seem to address people who just wear underwear in public. Algie may open a Pandora’s box here.

I don’t know about you, but I worry about people who spend this much time thinking about underwear.

This is actually not the first time that a bill like this has been proposed. Louisiana looked at a similar measure last year, but common sense prevailed and the bill failed.

Algie at least succeeded in getting the bill passed in the state house. Luckily the Senate brought sanity back to Virginia and shot down the bill.

If they hadn’t, I say we shouuld have headed down and gave them all wedgies. Then we could call the cops and have them fined because their underwear was sticking out.

That would teach them a lesson.