Nickname explained: When I was turning 6 and my brother, Pat, was turning 5 (we're Irish twins, the same age for 3 days), my dad slipped the waitress a paper with my name and my brother's name. The pizza place sang to patrons on their birthdays.
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| Me outside of Happy Joe's. In 2016 - Lad went to college in Davenport and we had dinner here, the scene of the nickname christening. |
Dad's handwriting is illegible at best. The waitress got Pat's name right, but called me Ernie. My actual name includes a few of the same letters as Ernie, but I was not a boy. I looked like a boy because my mom cut my hair with a flat edged razor blade, same as my brothers. It was a Dorothy Hamel style run amuck. Our neighbors were with us at this bday celebration and they still call me Ernie, and now so do you.
Why the blog nickname: I sometimes write funny/mind-blowing stories about my grouchy neighbor Mary Ann, my religious zealot, ultra-conservative, over-stepping in-laws (who've mellowed considerably in their old age), my controlling, judgie sisters, nut job people I've babysat for (*current families excluded as they are all delightful, praise the Lord) and the true tales I tell about our six (ages 15-25) offspring can be embarrassing, so I promised Coach that I wouldn't use real names in my blog when I started 10 years ago.
Unlike me, Coach lives in fear that Mary Ann (grouchy neighbor. Entitled might be more accurate) might discover my blog. Mary Ann is our neighbor extraordinaire -she's the type of neighbor who might call hollering that your elderly father's car is parked on the street in front of her house and she wants you to tell him to move it.
1. anyone can park there - it 's not illegal to park on the street in front of her house.
2. that's not even my dad's car. (How are there two burgundy Rendezvous cars in our small Chicago suburb? Your guess is as good as mine)
Speaking of cars: (well, that segue is a stretch, but oh well) I watch teachers' kids, so I have summer off, which helps because I can drive my kids to their stuff.
Honestly, most of my offspring can drive themselves now, but if you like a good car shuffling story then stick around. In summer we play a daily game of who's driving what when and how long will I have to wait for someone to come home with a car and can you drop off so-and-so on your way, and don't forget to pick dad up from work, if you swiped his car while he was seeing patients (he only works a few miles from home - thank goodness).
I was forced to ride a bike to my folks' house last summer when I exited my house to go to theirs and discovered there wasn't a car here for me. The bike I rode had a broken seat, so I had to ride the bike in a standing position the entire way there and back after I'd already gone for my 4 1/2 mile run. My folks live about a 1/2 mile from me, so I survived.
I looked silly though - like an oversized teenager riding one of those small BMX bikes, standing up, arms fully extended over the handle bars the entire time.
Is your family car-challenged, or professional car jugglers? Do you have a childhood nickname that you've not used in years, or is it still in circulation?
Love the nickname and the rationale for it
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed learning where Ernie came from. Bijoux is the French word for the nickname my friends have always called me. Our kids all have various nicknames of differing origins. I remember car shuffling when we had 3 cars with a 2 car garage. Now we have 2 cars with a 3 car garage and love being able to store summer stuff in the extra bay rather than the basement.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how nicknames can stick like this.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up my brother always called my Bozo and he still sometimes does. In university my labmates called my Liztown and a few of them still do. Other than that, I'm pretty boring and basically everyone just calls me Elisabeth.
We have too many cars, so I can't relate to car shuffling. We have five vehicles between the four of us! It feels excessive but *shrug*
ReplyDeleteSO far we are good on the car juggling. We have 4 cars and 5 drivers. One car is out at college with 2 drivers so they are probably juggling quite a bit actually. Maggie started driver's ed this week so soon we will have 6 drivers and 4 cars which will be tough but I'm hoping our oldest buys his own car when he graduates college because we need to push them out of the car nest sometime!
ReplyDeleteWith only 2 kids there was never any car juggling thankfully! I can only imagine how complicated it is to keep up with everyone's schedules and who's driving who where.
ReplyDeleteFor most of my childhood, we had three cars, because we parked the nice new one in the winter and Mom drove the old one while dad had a truck that he drove year round.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a couple of months of reading before I realized your name isn't Ernestine. I guess it seemed obvious and reasonable that everyone else in the family had a blog pseudonym, but it didn't occur to me that you did too.
Happy Joe's! I've been to so many children's birthday parties there! Fortunately, none of the children have received new names there.
ReplyDeleteFor most of our marriage, the two of us shared one car. This meant a lot of car shuffling, going out of our way to pick the other up from someplace, and just random shenanigans. We now have a second car, although our first car is old and clangy and shouldn't be driven over 60mph, so there's sometimes a discussion about who gets to take the good car. *sigh* I'm envious of people who don't have this issue.
We are car shufflers. We have a full driveway, so the last thing that happens before I go to bed (I go to bed earlier than the rest of my house), is that I make sure my car is able to get out of the driveway first thing in the morning. If a child has blocked me in, we need to shuffle cars and get them set up for the next day. Two or three cars will pull out, we drive into the cul de sac around the corner and then drive into the driveway in the correct order. It's like a ballet.
ReplyDeleteNicknames are a fun thing especially when they happen like in your story and then stick.
ReplyDeleteI don't really have a nick name that every one calls me.
My husband has one only he uses. My family I grew up in has one name that they use. And that is about it.
But I am very glad no one uses the short version "Tobi" because I hate it.
For me, ccr is actually my initials (and I have at least one friend who sometimes calls me that), and I added "in MA" because I lived in Massachusetts, and at the time, I saw a lot of blog comments where someone would specify that they were "Mary in New York" or "Sarah in California," that kind of thing. When I moved to Florida, I considered if I should change it, but eh, I'm used to being "ccr in MA" online, so I left it.
ReplyDeleteFun origin story for your nickname. Funny how little things like that end up sticking around for years later.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I think we all have that one neighbor like yours :/
Oh that's a cool story about your nickname/blog name... I totally thought it was just an intentional jumble of the letters of your real first name, but alas, there was an even better story behind it :)
ReplyDeleteHow many cars do you have to juggle between how many (driving) people? We are a one car family, but we're also just two people - so there's some "coordination" necessary but most days it works out. I do ride a bike (but luckily my seat is in working order LOL)
We live on an avenue with no street parking. At one point we had four drivers and five cars because my husband had a work vehicle. The amount of car shuffling that occurred was epic and terrible. The logistics each night were complex and made moreso when one or both boys would stay out very late and then be extremely loathe to get up early in the morning to let Rick out for work at 7AM.
ReplyDeleteBut at least we had a car for every person. We were living the dream compared to you, I guess. Yikes.
Oh my goodness, what an origin story! Mary Ann sounds like a real firecracker.
ReplyDeleteThat's such a great nickname story! I assumed you just made up a nickname for the blog; fun to find out it's a real life nickname!
ReplyDeleteMary Ann should join up with our neighbor, who once left a note on my husband's vintage red truck saying it was an eyesore and she was sick of looking at it from her window and he ought to park it elsewhere (rather than in front of OUR OWN HOUSE) so she could back into her driveway more easily. Had she come to the house and asked him nicely to move it, he would have been happy to oblige. When he went over to talk to her in person about it, she refused to answer the door, so he wrote a letter and then she called the cops on him for being threatening. An officer actually did come to our house and essentially apologized for being there but they had to follow up. This was years ago and we basically ignore each other now. Ridiculous.
I was called Jelly for awhile when my friend was talking to another friend, Kelly, and turned to say Julie, and out came Jelly. It's part of my URL for that reason, because the one I wanted wasn't available.
ReplyDeleteOh, car shuffling. I used to let my daughter take the car to school and I would ride my bike to the store, but that doesn't work as well anymore. We do a bit of shuffling, but not too bad.
Oh, that's funny! I thought "Ernie" was just an alias you picked at random when you didn't want to use your real name for the blog. I wouldn't have guessed it was an actual childhood nickname. It must have been pretty funny when the waiters sang Happy Birthday to Pat and "Ernie."
ReplyDeleteSarah - I hated it growing up, but I've learned to love it. Sort of.
ReplyDeleteBijoux - I've often wondered what Bijoux meant.
ReplyDeleteAh, two cars to fit in 3 spaces. Dare to dream. Bikes alone in our garage - take up so much space.
Elisabeth - Bozo - have you ever seen the Bozo show from the United States? I have no idea how widespread that was. Bozo was from Chicago - it's a local thing, but fairly well known. No nickname is not boring. It just means your name is well suited for you.
ReplyDeleteNicole - Shrug away, my friend. It's good to have more than enough cars to go around.
ReplyDeleteColleen - I didn't realize your boys had a car away at college. That's handy. We bought uncle's car because Ed can use it when he drives to the train station, but when he isn't using it WE DO. He'll be moving out next year, so I knew it was temporary - but by then Curly will be driving. It's a never ending cycle.
ReplyDeleteBeth - I cannot tell you how many times we thought we had it figured out and then the next morning we were like WAIT, HOW IS SO AND SO GETTING THERE? It's more calm when kids are at college.
ReplyDeleteJenny in WV - You are fancy people to keep the nice car nice in the garage. More power to you.
ReplyDeleteOh, I sort of remember that. Remember when the woman from the doc office called to cancel my appointment and her name WAS Ernie and I was like SERIOUSLY?
NGS - Hooray for Happy Joe's. It was happy until they ruined my name and my self respect. I laughed that you know no one who got a new name there.
ReplyDeleteWe do that too. We add an extra juggling element. Whoever is driving the shortest distance drives GW, because GW is an ancient auto. It isn't fun. I hate it when I've driven GW during the day, but don't have time to swap cars with Coach and I end up driving GW the gas guzzler SO far to get wherever I need to be.
Kara - I'm not sure what kind of ballet you've been to. Kidding. We have a short driveway but it's 3 cars wide. We squeeze them all on there. We haven't started to put a car in the extra garage yet. We do that when winter hits. We need to shuffle bikes out of the way so we can make room for the car in there.
ReplyDeleteTobia - Well, your nicknames must be quite something if you aren't willing to share them here. I'm teasing you.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad no one calls you Tobi either.
ccr - It makes sense that these are your initials, but my mind is blown. I thought you were still in MA. Florida? How are you liking that?
ReplyDeleteVAXhacker - I'm sorry I haven't hopped over to your blog yet. the last few days have been a bit icky. I've only slept a few hours. I didn't get all the blog reading in today that I hoped for. Life has thrown me a curve ball. More later.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the story. It was 45 years ago and I can still see it clear as if it happened yesterday.
San - Well I did sort of get the nickname from a jumbling of the letters of my name, but that came about because of my dad's terrible handwriting. Ha.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question. I should've explained. We have 8 people in the family. Our oldest son, Lad, moved out and he has his own car. Of the 5 other kids, 4 of them can drive, but during the school year 2 of them are away at college.
So RIGHT NOW, we have 4 cars for 4 drivers (two parents and two kids), but over the holidays two college kids will be home and we will be back to shuffling. In the summer we had 4 cars (bought the 4th car in May from my elderly uncle) for six drivers.
I feel like that was as clear as mud.
Nance - I can totally see how that would play out - the last kid would come home so late but then not want to get up to move his car. Yep. We have an added issue because we aren't supposed to block the sidewalk. Don't get me started.
ReplyDeleteIt is a bit complicated at times in the summer when everyone is home. We are lucky that we can run over and 'borrow' Coach's car, because he goes to work before 5 am half the time, but he doesn't leave his office. the key is that we have to remember to go back and get him so he isn't left waiting around for us.
Kate - OMG this is unreal. It truly sounds like Mary Ann's long lost evil twin. That's nuts. We've had cops come to our door and they sometimes apologize for being there but if a neighbor complains about us parking and blocking the sidewalk, they have to come and talk to us. Sheesh. Why are people so difficult?
ReplyDeleteJ - that's a cute story and I did notice that it was in your URL.
ReplyDeleteYou are much nicer than I am. I would not be riding a bike to the store. I've learned that if a kid is going somewhere and they take the one car left here, then I have to give certain kids different limits. If I want Reg home by 3:00, then I've learned to say 2:40. Ed? He'll have it home in plenty of time.
Jenny - Nope. Not random. I would NEVER choose Ernie. Sometimes I cringe when I see it here on my blog, but I do answer to it so I chose it because it seemed to make sense.
ReplyDeleteWell, my dad thought it was about the funniest thing EVE. He pounded the table with his fist when the waitress sang to us. My mom made me stand on my chair (that's what kid patrons did) and I folded my hands across my chest and tears ran down my cheek.
Suzanne - I've called Mary Ann a lot of names, but never fire cracker. You're nicer than I am.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh I laughed picturing 5’10” Ernie stand-up riding a BMX because you didn’t have a car available. I’m also assuming steam was coming out of your ears!!
ReplyDeletePat - I felt like a teenager. I can only imagine what I looked like. Silly. Pure silliness. I don't think I was steamed. I think I knew I didn't have a car, but it was a surprise because I forgot. It's like flipping the light switch during a power outage. Easy to forget.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the car shuffling. When Angus comes home we have three vehicles and THAT is too many. Funny about Coach getting stranded at work if someone forgets they swiped his car. You are a better woman than I - I would not be riding any broken-seated bike. I might walk, or I might just see my parents another day.
ReplyDeleteThat's actually quite a cute story about getting your nickname.
And now, I can sleep well tonight, knowing that your nickname comes from childhood trauma related to your mother's haircuts. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso? Our lives could not BE any more different...and yet I love reading your blog and about your life. Perhaps it's a moment of living vicariously in a large, potentially chaotic household that I don't have to actually deal with?
Alli - I'm glad you enjoyed my nickname background. As soon as the phone rings around the time Coach is supposed to come home, it hits me. WAIT, DID ANYONE GO GET DAD? I can't remember why I was hell bent on getting to my parents' house. Clearly I wasn't bringing a meal.
ReplyDeleteAnne - I'm glad knowledge of my childhood trauma is giving you sweet dreams. ;)
ReplyDeletePotentially? Chaos is the name of the game over here. It's always fun to welcome a new blog friend.
People would poop their pants and write me letters on living excessively if they knew how many cars we have. *sigh* (Not my choice!) So no car shuffling around here.
ReplyDeleteI love your nickname story, but love your real name even more. ❤️❤️
No nicknames here aside from Busy Bee or The Goddess of Nature.
HA. I made up that last one...
Suz aka Goddess of Nature, I wish you lived closer, so I could call you and ask you to pick up Coach from work when we forget him, or God forbid don't have a car home to go get him and have to track someone down. People would poop their pants - you're funny.
ReplyDeleteI hated my real name as a kid, because I got a lot of Valentine's with a boy's name spelled on them. Now I do like my name.