Names

When we were kids, my brother became dissatisfied with his name and asked our parents why they couldn't have given him a good name. Our dad took the bait and asked him what would be a good name. Roger, apparently thinking ANY name would be an improvement, said "I dunno. How about Rips?"

Even though he grew nicely into his name, he never lived down the Rips business. The problem was that he hadn't thought through his answer in advance and the first thing to come into his mind happened to seem pretty funny to the adults. As his devoted brother, I have been considering this problem for more than a few years now.

I am very happy to report that I have finally found a better answer. I called tech support for Quicken the other day and was connected to a fellow in India. The connection wasn't the best, so it's possible I misunderstood, but I think he said his name was "Eye Socket." I couldn't be sure of this, so I asked him to repeat it to me. It still sounded like "Eye Socket," so I went with it.

What a breakthrough! I had never thought of the potential treasure-trove of names to be found in the human body. Roger is a writer, so he can't just pick any part of the body. He needs something that conveys his nose for news and attentiveness to nuance. My suggestion for him, then, would be "Olfactory Epithelium." True, it's a little bit hard to spell, but people who read his stuff are smart and I'm sure they can handle it. And "Olfactory Epithelium" is so powerful that he would no longer need a last name at all. He would instantly catapult himself to celebrity status.

I can't wait to tell him.