Nicknames

When going through the process of leaving a comment, there is now a place to put your “Nickname”. Maybe it has been there for a while; I don’t know, but it seems new to me. I keep stumbling over it as I scroll down to click the “Publish” button. I am tempted to put in some odd nickname just to see what happens. Thinking about this made me think of the different nicknames that I have had through the years - some I will share, some I will not.

Growing up I was called Lulu, but I did not think of that as a nickname - it was more like my real name. My family will still call me Lulu, and I don’t even notice it. Old friends in Red River often call me Lulu, and I don’t even bat an eye. But let a stranger call me Lulu, and it causes me stop in my tracks and my brows to furrow and I think, “You don’t know me well enough to call me that.”

My dad often called me “Dirty Lil,” and he had a song that he would sing. “Dirty Lil, Dirty Lil, Lives on top of garbage hill, Never wash, Never will (hark and spit) Dirty Lil!” You see, I was a bit of a tomboy keeping up with my brother. My ponytail was often in terrible tangles. I can remember Mom scrubbing my neck, knees, elbows and ankles trying to get the NM dirt off of me. To this day it is hard for me to find a shirt in my drawer that does not have a stain somewhere on it. I have lots of clothes to paint or work in.

My cousin nicknamed me “Super Squirrel” because I was extremely lucky. I often won at things - not because I was the best, but because I was a squirrel - like at foosball when you score by accident rather than by skill. I just always seemed to come out on top, smelling like a rose.

In college my girlfriends started calling me “Loose Lou”. Let me explain that before your minds run amok. One morning my college buddies and I all met to wait in line all day for some tickets to something or other. To pass the time we were all telling about our dates the previous evening. Their dates had all been very normal. I had been to a party with friends from RR (that should tell you something right there because RR is a party town - they do it better than anyone). I met some guy at the party who was currently living in RR and had come with my friends to Lubbock. He was pretty handsome and quite charming and was hitting on me pretty heavy. I conversed with him most of the evening and through our conversation I found out all sorts of interesting things. The things he told me about himself were quite shocking to my college friends as I recounted the conversation to them. I can’t remember all he said, but I do remember that he said he was married, but it was only a common-law marriage so it didn’t count. Drugs, jail time, mental problems, etc - not so odd for a Red River transient. My friends could not believe that I had met such a person much less conversed with him the entire evening - hence the nickname. Don’t worry, I did not leave with him - I’m not stupid. Besides, Tom Brown kept an eye on me the whole evening. If this guy was worse than TB, then you know how bad he really was.

After I married, I picked up the nickname “Blue” while working at Texas Red’s. Toby worked in the kitchen with Rik (the cook) and together they like to torture and tease the waitresses. When the food was ready they would holler the waitresses’ name. They thought it quite funny come up with silly names, and they began to call me "Blue" as if they were calling a pet. Toby still calls me Blue now and then.

That is a few of my nicknames. So what nicknames do you have that you are willing to share?