No, Not Ishmael

I have a new, self-imposed-through-peer-suggestion anonymous-blogging nickname in the office. Hurrah. It's so hard to get other people to call you by nicknames, especially if they have nothing to do with your real name, and sometimes even if they do. Have you ever tried it? I wanted my Japanese friend in high school to call me Ai (a Japanese name) because her brother's name was Yu. She wouldn't go for it.

It's a bit strange collecting nicknames, because they get associated with only certain people or places and you forget they exist. I walked into my parents' church yesterday to be greeted with "Hi, Beth," and had to remind myself that oh, yes, people I don't even know have been told to call me that. Sometimes the nicknames get given for a reason that no longer seems appropriate after a while. Bob #3 at church (a new nickname I am bestowing on him just now to distinguish him from the Bob I usually talk about and The Other Bob who usually sits a row or two behind that Bob--really, can't any of them stick with Robert?) used to call me Volvo Girl, and was very upset when I came back one January driving a new old not-Volvo car. Mercury Girl doesn't have quite such a nice ring to it. Although it fits me in a strange way. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Except the ones who refuse to wear makeup or get their hair layered or spend lots of money on candles just because other women tell them it's the thing to do. Enter Mercury Girl.

And then sometimes people just steal your nickname out from under you. First my brother forbade me to have any Badtz-Maru stuff because he considered "The PO'd Penguin" his own personal Sanrio character of choice. Fine, I said, and bought myself a Baby Cinnamon pencil tray instead to honour my dearly departed doggie. But recently I have discovered that in his own world of animal-kingdom-friend nicknames, he has usurped Penguin for himself. Was this Puffin's idea? Well, Puffin had better avoid the wrath of Plumpkin.

But at last, now, in an office world of flying animal things, I get to be the flying frog. Because if all we had were flying pigs, who would make us thin little pancakes as an excuse to eat Nutella? While I am handing out office nicknames, though, I feel as if we should not stop there. Perhaps we can call Makiko the flying turtle. Sort of like Gamara. I'm sure she'll appreciate that.