We got to talking about nicknames the other day in the office and it almost seems that they may be going out of fashion.
I didn't really have a proper nickname when I was younger, my dad used to call me Mickser, and I was given the hand-me-down name of Skinny in elementary school as my older brother was called Skinny when he went to the same school.
I'm not sure about you, but having a hand-me-down nickname is almost as bad as having to wear hand-me-down underwear. Believe me, it's not good.
I have never been, nor am I happy today with my hand-me-down nickname and I wish I had done something so stupid or been so odd that my friends would have christened me with some ungodly name.
My brother was skinny, so he was called that. One of my classmates was fat so he was called Beans. The name was nothing to with being fat - although some thought it was - it was solely because he liked to pass gas. Beans, beans, good for your heart and all that.
Some of the names afforded people by their so-called friends were just cruel, some odd and some funny.
One kid who lived across the street from me had a pair of ears that stuck out like saucers. It was the bane of his existence and he was slagged about them for all his childhood. His nickname was simply Ears.
Another guy who lived down the street from me was named Chopper, I believe because he liked the chopper-style of bicycle that was popular at the time. He used to talk incessantly about his chopper.
"Look at the paint job on me new chopper... the handlebars are great on me chopper... I got new mirrors on me chopper..."
One good friend of mine at the time was given the nickname Ferret. While on a hostelling trip - the hostel was attached to an old farmhouse - we found a couple of ferrets in the barn. Some weird act on TV at the time put bicycle clips on the bottom of his trouser leg and dropped a ferret down his pants. The ferret would run around for a while up and down the legs then the guy would pull it out. Obviously the ferret was well fed before being dropped into the pants.
Anyway, my friend decided to try this odd activity. He put his pant legs into his socks grabbed a ferret and dropped it into his pants. After a few seconds he dropped his drawers and pulled the poor ferret out. And from then on he was simply known as Ferret.
Another friend of mine I walked to school with almost every day we called Anto. His first name was Anthony and so it was shortened to Anto. However, in high school our vice-principal, Barney McCormack, a man to be reckoned with, gave Anto a new name. No one is sure where the name came from or even why he used it when referring to my friend, but the name stuck from that day on.
The principal called him Vinkle-poopy-dinks. I think maybe us teenagers were a little rowdy and Barney had been hitting the special sauce a little. It made no sense to anyone, but a new nickname was born. On occasion it was shortened to Vinkle.
Another boy in my high school class - it was an all-boys school - with roaring red hair and glasses, was picked on a lot and when he had enough he would go off like a bomb. As his surname was Tynan, he was then christened TynBomb, kinda like Time Bomb. It was the perfect nickname.
Another guy I played soccer with had the unfortunate experience of having his arm chopped off by a train after he and some friends decided to try and steal some of the kegs of beer the train was carrying. He was from then on known as Slot Machine or the One Armed Bandit. He used to ride motorcycle as he moved the clutch to the same side as the gas and at soccer practice when we had to do pushups he would ask if he could do half the number as he only had one arm.
Other names may not have had a good story to go with them but were good nonetheless. Paul "Little Miss" Moffat, Chris "Chalky" White, Eamonn "Molly" Malone, David "Barrell" Farrell and Mark "Sparky" Beatty. And then there was Peter Mulvanny also known as Peter "Pierre Paul Olly Arthur Theobald Fonzarelli Knasher" Mulvanny (don't ask).
As good or bad as some of these names are at least the weren't hand-me-downs. How I wish I had done something stupid when I was younger. I do remember when I was about 11 climbing over a barbed wire fence at the back of our shed while wearing shorts to retrieve our soccer ball. Unfortunately the barbed wire caught on my manly bits and me and my brother had to shout until the next door neighbour came out to free me.
Maybe I could have earned the nickname Spike, or SLF, the initials of the rock group Stiff Little Fingers who had a song called Barbed Wire Love. Either one would be better than a hand-me-down.
