Call Me Marky Mark

Try as you might, there are several things in life you cannot do.  You can't look at your back without using a mirror. You can't wiggle your nose like Samantha Stevens and make your mother disappear. You can't run a mile in two minutes. You can't flap your wings and fly. You can't name a Jackass movie that I don't like. You can't buy a steak dinner with Monopoly money. You can't possibly tell me that Jim Parsons is funny, you can't boil water in a freezer, you can't escape an giant ant colony if you're slathered in Mrs Butterworth's Syrup.

And you can't give yourself a nickname.  Really!

Look at the cool people you know who go by cool nicknames.  There are the obvious ones, like "Stretch" for the tall guy in the office and "Bones" for the husky guy, and also "Stretch" for the height-challenged and "Bones" for the skinny guy.

Every "Jim" has been a "Jimbo" at least once, and every kid with hair of flame has been called "Reds," although that's just Baltimore. I understand that redhaired kids in all other towns are called "Red."

Baseball, of course, has its own colorful sobriquets, from Bill Ripken's memorable bat-knob name to guys like "Cookie" (Lavagetto or Rojas) and "Dizzy" (Dean and Trout). I always say, though, a sentence you will never hear is, "Hi, I'm going to be your brain surgeon, I'm Cookie O'Hoolahan, M.D."

Of course, George Dubya Bush was called "Turdblossom" by his sawed-off Sancho Panza, Karl Rove. Or was that the other way around? I can't imagine that it matters.

But getting back to where we came in...you CANNOT dub yourself with a nickname of your own devising. At work years ago, we had a guy who worked hard at one thing, which was inculcating in everyone's minds the notion that his nickname was "Tater." I don't know why; he didn't look like a potato, or eat more potatoes than anyone else there. I think he thought the nickname would make him seem a bit nonchalant and insouciant, although he never said so in those words. And whenever I went to speak with him, I knew he didn't want to be addressed by his real name, which I believe was "Hiram," but I would fumble for "Tater" and come up with mashed potatoes and, so, call him "Lumpy."

There is one and only one "Tater," the man born James Cecil Dickens, a/k/a "Little Jimmy Dickens," who would draw himself up to his full 4' 11" and sing "Take An Old Cold Tater And Wait."

And that's why they called HIM "Tater."  It even said so on his guitar strap.

So if you want a colorful nickname, learn to pick a gee-tar and sing country songs!