My dad thought of it while shaving (Part 2)

I managed to get through high school without picking up another name as Glenster seemed to suffice for most people when they needed to call upon me, but didn't want to go through the simple effort of actually calling me by my given name. It's a funny moment when you lothe someone for their lack of creativity, but have to happy about the fact that they didn't decide to call you "assnugget" instead.

Eventually I got a job working for a retail store after I dropped out of college and almost instantly noticed that nearly everyone that worked there had a nickname. But instead of trying to give people a reason to give me a name, I went out and tried to give names to some of the "nickless."

This experiment began and ended with one person. There was a guy, named Greg, that worked in the customer service department, and I wasn't good friends with him by any means, but I decided his nickname should be "Superguy." I had no reason for calling him this, as I mentioned, I wasn't even really friends with him. He had never done anything super, as far as I was concerned, but I got it in my head that it was the right name for him and I would do my best to make sure that it stuck. The whole effort became a spectacular failure. Everytime I saw him, I would say or yell out, "Hey there, SUPERGUY!" The problem with using that strategy is the simple fact that YOU had to say the name so many times in an attempt to give it to that person, that before too long, people would be more inclined to associated it to you. Before too long, people started to call me Superguy.

I didn't really have a problem with the name, per se, but what I did have a problem with was the fact that no one had actually given me the name. I essentially gave it to myself. To me, that defeated the whole spirit of the nickname concept. Hell, if I was going to give myself a nickname I would just walk up to everyone, point my thumbs at myself and say, "Just call me Monster Cock, or MC if you want to keep it simple." It wouldn't matter that it wasn't true, but who would complain if one of your friends yelled that out in a bar.

After the Superguy debacle, I decided to forsake my need for another name, and up until recently it was going well. That takes us up to that recent discussion I was having with friends where we talked about the fact that none of us had ever had a name that stuck with us.

They kicked around the idea of calling me "Bird", because I'm so cheap, but I'm not a huge fan of it. So, at this point I continue to wait for the moment where a friend will come up to me and say, "Does G-Whiz work for you?"

Although with that name, all I have is an image of one of those Calvin and Hobbes rip off cartoons where the little boy is taking a leak on something. I guess in my case, he'd be pissing on a monitor, instead of a Ford or Chevy emblem. I just hope they remember to unplug it. MC can't risk hurting himself that way.

My dad thought of it while shaving (Part 1)

Recently I was having a discussion with some friends and we were all lamenting the fact that none of us had a nickname.

I had a few when I was growing up, but none of them ever seemed to stick. The first ones that I can recall were the incredibly imaginative "Haagster" and it's partner, "Glenster." Seriously, who wants a nickname that actually contains their entire name. Nicknames are supposed to be some cool word that describes some great thing you did or make fun of you in a way that everyone, including yourself, can enjoy. If you asked someone what the chief characteristic of a guy called Haagster, they'd probably say something like.

"Um... he's a guy. Probably some guy named Haagster."

I decided not to let those names take and tried to get people to move onto some names that were a touch more creative.

The next one that came up was "Haagaboom." I really thought this one would stick long term, but alas it faded away.

The origin of the name was not really all that much of a stretch, but it's a slightly interesting story (aren't they all.) I was involved in a Fantasy Football league when I was in the 8th grade, and during that season the NFL went on strike. To this day I don't recall how I managed to pick him up, but I grabbed Gary Hogeboom off of the waiver wire. Gary was a Quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts and he decided to cross the picket lines and play while the rest of the player's association was on strike. As a result, I was the only person that had someone that was actually active during the fantasy season and won the league. Well, when a guy named Haag picks up a guy named Hogeboom people tend to remember stuff like that.

I was Haagaboom for about 6 months or so and then a name really stuck with me.

For those of you that know me, you'd be able to attest that I'm not the most handy of fellows. So, signing up for shop class was probably not my best move. But I was jonesing for a pencil holder and that was the only way I could try to construct one for free. One of the issues that I didn't count on when I got into shop class was the fact that my temper could cause a problem.

One day, when applying some stain to my incredible pencil holder (it could hold pens too!) someone decided to make fun of me for some reason and I decided to take matters into my own hands (you'll groan in a minute.) Being the hot head that I was, I thought it would be a good plan to stick my hands in stain and go and put a huge hand print on the back of his shirt. Well, after you do something stupid like that you're bound to get a name out of it. "Stainmaster" was born.
I don't really recall how long that name lasted because I really tried to shed it as quickly as possible, but I couldn't really come clean. At this point, I'll understand if you want to leave after reading that poor attempt at a joke, it wasn't my best effort, but it's all I've got for now.

To be continued....

Confetti

For those of you that don't know, I'm on my way to becoming a father. To quote a line from a TV show that I saw recently, "It's time for someone else to be the child in this family."

Sarah and I have really been looking forward to this for quite some time, and I really think that she'll be a great mother. While I on the other hand, will fill our child's head with bits of inane knowledge and goad them on until they pull my finger.

Over the past few years that Sarah and I have been "trying" to start a family, I've found that more and more people seem to be having the same sorts of issues that we were having. Just about every woman that we know has had a "Jalapenogram" or some other test to determine why they were having issues with getting pregnant, and along with them, each of their guys has gotten a head count, no puns meant there, of their sperm.

Why is it that our parents never seemed to have these issues? Heck, my sisters were born 10 months apart. I don't even think my dad let my mom even rest before they started going after kid number 2.

After Sarah and I had been "trying" for about 4 years before we decided to see a reproductive endocrinologist. At that point I had already had my boys checked out and everything seemed to be in order, except for the fact that they kept swimming towards lights. I just decided that they were looking for the nearest TV or computer monitor.

Sarah has always had issues with having the normal 28-day cycle thing happen, so she was put on some medications for that, in the hope that we could try to get everything as close to that as is possible. Then the process begins.

I won't bore you with all of the details of all of the scans, exams, administering of shots, and things such as that, while they were interesting in their own way they're not the main part of "my story."

Eventually, we got to a point where Sarah's cycle began and then I had to make a deposit that would be used for artificial insemination.

Now, I don't want to brag here, but I'm not exactly a rank amateur at the whole "deposit creation" process. I felt pretty confident that my vast years of practice attempts would make the whole thing would go quite smoothly and I would be in and out, no pun intended, and our child would soon be on it's way.

I arrived for my first "session" at around 6:00 in the morning. It wasn't my typical time for doing anything such as that, but I figured that if anyone could make it all work eventually, it would be me. So, I grabbed my cup and went to take a look at the room where I would be doing my work for that morning.

Before we go into the details of that particular room, I'm not going to get in-depth into the whole process after that. I don't want to scare away any of my five readers (God knows I need you all to keep reading) by giving out far too much information about this particular topic. Now that we have that settled, I can continue with the story.

When you're going into a place like that, you're pretty single minded in purpose. You've got your goal in mind, you've practiced for an event like this, and you’re all about business. Of course, then you have to look and see what porn they have to offer.

As far as porn is concerned, I'm not going to go into my likes and dislikes. But, when you happen to see a copy of Teenage Tit Freaks (Volume 8) lying about, it's difficult to hold back the giggles.

So, when I walked into the room the first thing I noticed was a fairly comfortable looking chair. "A good start," I thought. You’ve gotta be comfortable at 6 in the morning. Then I noticed the TV/VCR combo unit. Both were things that I expected to see when I went in there. Then I noticed what would make things very difficult. Something that I could not have prepared myself for. Something that no man should have to be forced to deal with while masturbating. Mike Holmgren.

For those of you who don't know who Mike Holmgren is, he is the former head coach of the Green Bay Packers. I'm not going to say that there was a giant poster of the man on the wall, but what was there definitely made you think about him.

On one wall of the room was a picture of Lambeau Field on some random Monday night. On the other wall, was a picture that was taken right after the Packers had won Superbowl XXXI. Being a Packer football fan, there are basically two or three images that stick in your head from that game. Brett Favre running down the field with his helmet off after he threw a touchdown pass to Andre Rison that allowed the Packers to take an early lead, and the image of Mike Holmgren being carried off the field by a few of the players.

Apparently some amateur interior decorator decided at some point that since there would be a great deal of men using this room, that they should “sport up” the place. I was always told when I was growing up that you wanted to think about sports when you were trying NOT to be aroused. Clearly this room would be a challenge to that school of thought.

I won't bore (or disturb) you with the rest of the details of that event, but I can tell you one thing that happened as a result of that day. For one brief moment, I hated being a Packer fan, because they made it difficult for me to do something much more important than anything that happened in that football game.

I’ll tell you one thing, it takes a lot of porn to get Mike Holmgren out of your head… a lot of porn. In fact, I think one of the movie boxes actually advertised itself that way.

“Guaranteed to get any NFL coach out of your head, or your money back.”

Seriously, who is going to challenge them on something like that?