Nicknames are more coveted than the 10th and final slice of a pizza split three ways; people have spent entire lifetimes trying to attain good ones only to get aliases like Honest Abe or Tricky Dick.
Not to belittle the titles of our former presidents, but those are some weak nicknames. Anybody can simply add an applicable adjective to your first name to make a nickname. And no President Nixon: you don't get extra credit because yours kind of rhymes.
I'm talking about great nicknames, names like Hawkeye Pierce, William The Refrigerator Perry, Eldrick Tiger Woods, or Elvis's The King. These nicknames are more than just bland adjectives mixed haphazardly with someone's common name; they are a part of somebody's identity.
Many a soul have tried desperately to get the nickname they desire only to be dubbed some horrible other name through some twist of fate. This tale is found throughout human history.
An extremely recent and entirely fictitious rumor has it that Ivan the Terrible wanted to be nicknamed Roulette before he was Ivan the Terrible. But there was already a Roulette in Russia. In an attempt to seize the beloved Roulette
Ivan had the other Roulette killed. But after this act, everybody hated him so much that they called him Ivan the Terrible. This lesson was taken to heart by another Russian ruler, Katherine the Great.
Not to mention that it's pretty pathetic when you give yourself a nickname, because you would never call yourself something at all self-deprecating. You'd sound like a damn fighter pilot. Hi my name's 'Maverick.' And you are? You try that kind of garbage and you'll be hanging out with Sting faster than you can whistle Roxanne.
All this thought that has been allocated to nicknames was inspired by one very special moniker. A good friend of mine has acquired a nickname this year that he is not terribly fond of, for a number of reasons.
First, it's not a name that would conventionally be thought of as cool, though it is my belief that it is its oddity that makes it sweet. Secondly, it is wholly and completely without merit. There is no true basis for this name; it just seemed to fit and, through me using it excessively, has stuck.
His nickname is Creamy. No, I assure you that it has absolutely no affiliation with any kind of filthy acts that your dirty 18- to 25-year-old mind may be thinking. It's as non-offensive as Phil Collins. But man does he dislike it, which makes it perversely enjoyable for us.
Hours of joy have come out of this name. Utilizing MP3 downloading agents from the internet, the search cream has produced audio splendor. Every track ever created and made into digital form with cream in the title is now on my computer. We're frivolous; we even search songs with words that rhyme with cream so that we can reshape them in Creamy's image.
We're really trying to encourage him to use his new nickname for his own advantage instead of just for our own selfish pleasure. For example, he could use his nickname in clever pick-up lines with pretty girls. Juvenile things only we find funny, like You'll scream I'll scream
everybody scream's for me
Cream. He's been sanely hesitant.
He's been a pretty good sport about it, and he's now starting to embrace it a little by using the Bob Dole technique of referring to one's self in the third person. Things like Creamy don't like that or Let's throw some Cream into the mix. It's the acceptance that comes after the denial of every great nickname.
And to be perfectly honest, I'm jealous. Not that Creamy is the hippest nickname ever, but it is his. I'm fairly confident that he is the only person here at the university who is called Creamy by his friends. He has something unique, something that makes him stand out. In a place where you're known as your first and last initials followed by six seemingly random numbers, a name like Creamy is a gift, not a burden.
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Eric Dryden
