WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Gentle Readers,

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I'm not so sure that's true. What if a rose were called a skrunklebutt?

I had a high school teacher who said, You are your name.

I had a college professor who said, Words are power.

I agree with both of them.

Scrunklebutt does not sound sweet and pretty and I think if a rose were called a skrunklebutt that it would take on the ugly associations of the icky-sounding word.

When I was in elementary school, there was a boy named ****** Dick. He was a year younger than me and was a perfectly nice kid. He got picked on mercilessly. There was nothing wrong with him except that his last name was Dick. Thus, he was not Mr. Popularity. My buds and I yelled at the dumb kids who picked on him and invited him to play tether ball with us.

I also had to deal with a business associate one time who had a difficult to pronounce and spell last name. She helped me out with it and then said, At least it's better than my maiden name, which was Buttkiss.

It took all my strength and will power, but I did not laugh. I simply said, I bet you would have married just about anyone to get rid of that. She smiled and was cheerful about it, but I bet she wasn't smiling and cheerful growing up. I bet she was tortured. And she was a very pretty, nice woman. You can't get anywhere in the world with the name Buttkiss any more than a flower called a skrunklebutt can be beautiful and smell sweet. Some people would defend the skrunklebutt and say its name doesn't matter, but most people would despise the skrunklebutt.

If names didn't have important associations, then lots of German kids named Adolf would still be running around. I don't think Coors beer mentions too often anymore that Adolf Coors was their founder. The name Adolf in and of itself isn't ugly, but it has ugly associations.

How about Adolf Buttkiss Dick? Now there's a name for you. And the altar flowers when he's baptized could be skrunklebutts.

I know I'm dumping lots of ideas on you today, but I want you to start thinking about the importance of names because I have more to say about them,

In fact, I have quite a bit to say about names, but I think this is enough for now.

And the next times somebody gives you roses, I bet you'll think, Ahhhh shit, it's skrunklebutts.

Infinities of love,

Lola