Little background. Over the years I have lived in more places then years of life. Needless to say some where for a very short time. Also I am someone that is very easy to remember since I am usually the biggest man in the room and very personable. This leaves me talking to a lot of people I don’t remember in some social situations.
Yesterday I was a pallbearer at the funeral of someone I’ve known since 1972. On several occasions over the years l lived as a roommate of his family and in fact would have been homeless twice had he and his family not taken me in. At the reception after the burial a guy came up and started a conversation with me and it was obvious we had known each other at some point, I just couldn’t remember him. He picked up on it and told me his name and I was still at a loss. So he said to me “I lived on the corner of xxx and xxx with my wife and two
kids”. And then I said it. “Oh yeah, Blondie and Dagwood.” And THEN realized, oh shit, that was something that only myself and a couple other people use to call them when talking ABOUT them and not to them.
The look on his face told me that it was something he had heard in 1990 but didn’t care for and was happily a forgotten tag.
Reading back over this I now realize it truly is mundane and pointless, but I did spend several minutes of my mind numbingly (is that a word?) boring day typing this so I’m gonna click on “Submit New Thread” anyway.
As a child I outed my parents nickname for our guests at a dinner party. It was only mildly unflattering, but then the gentleman was my Dad’s boss. Oops!
Fortunately they were also golf buddies, and he had kids too, so he just laughed.
I’ve had people who know me both online and in real life call me “Smapti” to my face.
I kinda created a nickname for someone who used a product for a company I worked for, and I meant to send the email to my boss but I sent it to him instead!
It wasn’t wholly un-flattering, and I ended up rectifying the situation by calling him it again, but in a different context, and nothing came from it.
Remember kids: Always look before you send email!
When I was in college, a long time ago, our group of friends included a guy who dressed very well in the clothes of the era, which were horrible.
- Plaid bell bottom pants, platform shoes, long pointy collars on the open chest shirts, maybe a medallion around the neck. But he was a successful ladies man and trying to dress the part.
When he wasn’t with us we all referred to him a Pimpy Dan. Watch the Blacksploitation film Super Fly and insert a white guy into the clothes. Pimpy Dan was a sort of term of endearment, we all liked the guy.
Anyway, one night we were all drinking and other things and one person called him Pimpy Dan without thinking. I don’t think he had heard it before and suddenly he became aware that was how we referred to him. You could have heard a pin drop and the look on his face hurt us even though we were all just drunk college kids.
I wasn’t the one who said it, but I still wish we hadn’t.
At college I shared a flat with a guy, for almost a year. At the weekends we’d have mates over and drink whatever we could afford. The local convenience store had some really cheap, nasty Scotch which we called ‘A bottle of the nasty stuff’. One time I went into the shop and asked the keeper for ‘A bottle of the nasty stuff’. He wasn’t amused.
Like JustinC I’ve used unflattering nicknames for products, companies, and locations in circumstances that caused me some embarrassment. “Miscarriage Special” for a particularly tasty but saucy burrito plate was one of the better (worse?) ones.
I try pretty hard to avoid giving people secret nicknames because I’m way too much of a speak what I’m thinking kind of guy to avoid accidentally saying them to the subject’s face. And I’d be mortified [del]if[/del] when I did so.
I do it a lot. On purpose.
I busted out “Fartin’ Martin” at a friend’s kid’s birthday party, filled with a bunch of his new churchy friends. His wife was aghast! (as opposed to her being ghastly in general)
I was on the other end of this. A good friend and her girlfriend had taken to calling me “Pinky” between themselves (yes, I am very fair skinned). I knew this much but wasn’t to happy about it. Especially after a friend of theirs casually called me that. She not only thought that was a legit nickname, she had no idea what my real name is.
I’ve done it a few times on purpose when a friend pushed me a little too far for some reason and particular day. Former Bishop Wonder Warthog should have known better than to get all Pauline on my ass when I was tired.
As an undergrad, one of my buddies told of an event in his frat where one particularly drunk brother at a crowded party blurted out a certain girls nickname: “Hoover.” She was not amused about her reputation.
Great. Now I’m wondering if people have nicknames like that for me. I pretty much assume that people talk about me behind my back but the nickname thing hadn’t occurred to me before.
College was awful for this. Each of these were nicknames we had for someone in the group, got blurted out and caused great embarrassment:
[ul]
[li]Lefty - referring to her breasts being of unequal size[/li][li]Bam Bam - muscle head boyfriend of one of the girls in our group[/li][li]Anorexia Poster Child - um, yeah[/li][li]DA (dumb ass) - When he heard this he said, “Why are you calling me District Attorney?”[/li][/ul]
I recall a mystery short story where a ditzy waitress accidentally called the criminal by his name, but couldn’t remember what it was she said. Ultimately, the crook was caught, and the detective, observing that his name was “Brighton Von Wortendyke Early”, wondered how on earth she could have called him that by accident.
She thought about it for a moment, and then realized that she had greeted him with “Bright and Early!”, referring to his being in the diner early in the morning for breakfast.