I have a pretty regular routine every morning on my way to work. I always leave within 2 minutes of 5 AM, and I always stop at 7-11 for coffee (only 50 cents to fill my travel mug). There are several people I see there almost every day, I can even tell who is there by the cars outside. I don’t know their real names, but I have my own names for them:
Mustache Lady - she’s the cashier on every day but Thursday
Creepy Serial Killer guy - the cashier on Thursday mornings
Sugar man - I see him put 14-16! packets of sugar into a 20 oz coffee cup
BBPG (big black prison guard - he’s in uniform, and probably 7’ 300 lbs)
Dirtball - looks like a grubbier version of Willie Nelson
That’s all I can think of right now, does anyone else do this?
Monterey Guy - comes into the restaurant where I work every friday and orders a monterey prepared a particular way. All I have to do is go back into the kitchen and yell “make a monterey for that guy!” and they know exactly what I’m talking about. I have no idea what his name is.
Ghetto White Boy - I see him around campus a lot. He’s super skinny, real tall and gangly and, obviously, white. And he always has on really baggy pants and way-too-big sports jerseys and a baseball cap turned semi-sideways with a flat brim.
you can see her every morning, all year round walking in the median on the north/south main drag through the city. it was 15 degrees this morning, and there she was, right on time all bundled up.
she waves at a few of us every morning.
one of my customers can never remember my name, so when she calls the office she asks for “that alarm guy with the pony tail”
Nice Haired Guy- Has his hair spiked up and looks rather good
Ice Cream Guy- Sells ice cream in the shop and has soft hands. I know this because he gave me change. I bring five dollar bills just so I can recieve change…
Sour Milk Lady- Constantly has an expression like she had just smelled sour milk.
At my old gym was “Ponytail on Top of Head Girl”. I think she pretty much explains herself.
My Grammie, mum and aunties were the queens of Stranger Nicknames. If someone was female and bedraggled, they were “Lizzie Off The Pickle Boat.” Someone with bowlegs due to iron deficiancy was dubbed “Spinach Legs.” If you hiked your pants way up so your socks showed, your name was “Charlie Highpockets.” We are in the process of compiling a list of “Grammie’s Lexicon” for future publication.
I do this as well, it seems to start when someone catches my eye and then I see them a few days later and it just builds from there. I find over time as I see them more I can narrow down details or a chance sighting provides details e.g. I see someone always near work but one day see them catching the bus home. Some of these people are known “locals” such as the White gloves woman described below who other people have mentioned after we walk past or see her.
I moved from the south of Sydney to the north (about 1.5 away hours) and it didn’t take too long to get a new set of people I see around town. The following are a few people I see around.
White gloves: A woman who walks around with white gloves on, often carrying a shopping bag or wheeling a large garbage bin around. She goes to the area where I work and collects aluminium cans I think. I used to be heading out after work and see her heading to the business area.
Curly hair: This is a guy who sits in the park or walks around near where I work. I thought he was homeless - this is in the suburbs where it is rare to see homeless people - but then saw him walk into a house 10 minutes away from the park one day and I think he lives there.
Chinese guy: I don’t know if he is actually Chinese or another nationality. I first saw him when I was catching the bus for a while and he would get on with a woman. I thought they were unrelated on the first day I saw them because the fact they both looked Asian and the same age doesn’t mean they are related. Also they would sit in separate parts of the bus. Then I realised they must be married because I saw them talking to each other in the way couples do. Couples usually sit together so the fact that they didn’t is why I first noticed him.
After initially catching my attention within a month I had seen him multiple times in separate locations - near where I lived, near where I work, at a shopping centre 30 minutes away and when buying take-away in a suburb between home & work. It was really bizarre. I now know he works near me, above a fish and chip shop and I already knew he lived in the suburb between home & work because that’s where he would get on the bus.
The count: This is one from my school days. He is a named after the Sesame Street character because he would walk along the train carriage counting people, all of the schoolkids who caught the train knew of him and was the first “regular sighting” person I recall. I later found out he was a regular visitor to the department store my mother worked in and he would talk with the staff there, including my Mum. He was in his mid 20s and had a mental disability, he would walk along the train and sometimes touch people on the head as he counted.
With the exception of “the count” who was named by other people I don’t actually apply a fake name - when I see them I recognise them but not with a name and i don’t discuss this with other people so names don’t need to be applied
At the Circle K in my neighborhood, there’s OrangeJacketVest Guy, who’s almost always there standing at the corner and carrying on loud discussions with his imaginary friend, and there’s CystFace The Cashier that’s almost always there early on a weekday morning.
At another Circle K in my old neighborhood, there was Older Biker Camo Lady, who’s appearance in front of the store with her dog EVERY SINGLE TIME I went there puzzled and bewildered me to no end. And I went there ALOT.
Ah, Tucson Circle Ks… they are bastions of diversity and eccentricity.
Perfect Girl is the most physically perfect girl that works out in my school’s fitness center. I mean her body is PERFECT: beautifully proportioned, fit but not overly muscular, etc., the kind of girl that other girls love to hate. She’s beautiful and, it turns out, very nice.
Porcelean Doll: This woman that works at Wal-Mart that I see all the time. She’s very fair skinned and wears makeup that’s all wrong for her skin tone. Her hair is really long and curly, so curly I doubt she can get a brush through it, so she sort of looks like a doll. In a good way, she’s pretty, despite the makeup.
Cute Guy: This squishy, teddy bear guy I see on campus that I think is cute.
Naked Shirt Guy: This long haired guy that walks around all over the city with no shirt on when the weather is warm. I’m talking main highways and everything. He thinks he’s so pretty.
Fake Homeless Vet Guy: This other guy that stands at the entrance to the interstate holding a sign saying that he’s stuck here and he’s a homeless vet.
Motormouth: This guy in one of my sociology classes this semester that I had a psych class with two summers ago. He. Will. Not. Shut. Up. Ever. I enjoy classroom discussions, but this guy is a complete idiot and never stops talking and drives me berzerk.
Anorexic Jogger: I see him jogging all the time…morning, noon, and night. He is so thin that his legs look like two snakes swallowed softballs. He may not be anorexic, but with all the jogging and the skinny, he appears to be. That’s why I call him that (but only in my mind, of course).
Assatall Man: Another one I see walking around. I call him that because he has no ass at all.
Bob Ross: Also a walker; looks just like the guy who used to paint those pictures on PBS, only with a beard to match the hair.
I work at a coffee shop, but the vast majority of our customers are regulars and we know their names. For the ones we don’t know, we can at least remember their drink, so to each other, we call them that.
“I haven’t seen ‘single-grande hazelnut’ lately, know where he’s been?” or, "hey look, its ‘tall non with a pink.’ "
When I was in Budapest, we had names for several people that we met often, but never spoke much to. Dum-Dum was a young palooka who worked at the bucher shop and seemed to like my SO. The Herdmans were a bunch of bratty kids who ran around the apartments with no supervision. Their ages were all over the place. Named from the kids in the book. The bread lady was a nice lady who ran a small shop where we bought fresh bread and I bought Cocacola.
And* Oscar* was a grouchy guy who spoke English and complained about my son at the local pre-school.
I could write a similar book (okay, maybe just a pamphlet) of nicknames various relatives of mine have coined. My maternal great-grandmother emigrated from what’s now the Czech Republic, and thus came up with such sobriquets as Sohotinas (approximately pronounced Soe-HOE-tee-nosh), which means “consumptive” and was applied to an apparently tubercular man who was a regular audience member-dancer on the Cleveland TV show Polka Varieties. Years later, my Aunt Karen christened a new Sohotinas – an oddball who walked around the neighborhood coughing (always smoking a cigarette) and spouting off generally incomprehensible rants about “the Constitution of the United States”.
Other men were tagged Kozibrada (goat’s beard), Strecek (bot fly), and Pantata (roughly “good fellow”). Unfortunately, both women mentioned in the preceding paragraph are now dead, so many similar appellations are lost to history.
When my brother Mark worked at a bookstore in Manhattan, he had such regular customers as “The Mayor of New York” (who constantly ranted about Hitler and walked around the neighborhood as if he owned the place). After Mark returned to Ohio and found employment at Borders, he was entertained by such fixtures as “Satan Boy”, a martial arts aficionado who dabbled in Satanism. When Satan Boy then began to flirt with Mormonism (go figure!), he was redubbed “the Brigham Youngster”. I’m sure I’ll think of a few more such monikers once I hit the “submit” button…
When I was in college, I lived just off campus in an apartment building surrounded by sororities. It was a tough life, lemme tell you. Anyway, our balcony/sliding glass door faced the back of one house so we’d see a lot of activity. Ummm…accidentally. Anyway…there was one girl that looked REALLY tall and my roommate took to calling her Sororitron 3000.
Later that year we ended up running into her at a party. She was very nice.
Right now we have Headphone Guy. On days when he’s wearing colors that really suit him, I secretly call him Surprisingly Cute Headphone Guy. My new roommate actually knows who he is. She offered to introduce us and “put in a word for me”.
I will never ever admit that I think someone is cute again. It would figure that our new roommate is friendly and in the band.
Note: I only regret invitations because I never feel I can make it worth it to the other person. I am a dork in RL social situations.
Psyco Bitch - for the neighbor lady
Steve - her unfortunate husband - we don’t know his real name, his wife won’t let him speak to anyone.
Spawn of Satan - their 8 year old grandchild
Schlo-mo - their twice divorced with 2 kids daughter that seems a little…off (We gave her a built-from-spare-parts-computer for Christmas, along with lots of kids games for her son. She came over a few days later because neither she nor her dad could figure out how to start the games. Granted, she may not have any experience with computers, but all these CD’s were auto-start…
BikeGuy - we always see this guy riding a recumbunt bike
DeadChild - son of a friend - he has always moved very slowly, does not respond when spoken to and will not look you in the eye. I have known him for almost 6 years. Yes, he has been checked out medically, no, there is nothing wrong with him.
Creepy runner guy - a terribly thin, bowlegged man we see running the track at the school
ClownGuy - because he is a professional clown
BikeChick - girl at my daughter’s high school. The way she rides a bicycle brings to mind the mean woman from Wizard of Oz. She goes up to random people in the halls and says things like “Hi girlfriend!”
KarateGuy - cashier at the grocery store that we got into a conversation about karate once.
Cigarette/L.A. Guy - adorable cashier at the cigarette counter at Sam’s.
LawnMower Guy - he fixes our lawnmowers.
Come to think of it, we probably have a nickname for everyone we know. Hmmm.
Kind of a generic name I give to loudmouth boors, particularly those hollering into cellophones in restaurants, buses, or wandering the aisles at the video place:
